Fast Net News, DSL Prime, DOCSIS Report

Outside of U-Verse territory, AT&T lost at least 27,000 DSL customers. AT&T added 8 or 9M U-Verse avails in 2008, but announced Wednesday they will reduce that to less than 4M/year, dragging their stage 2 deployment out through 2011. They reduced their U-Verse plans from 13M in 2009-2010, or 6-7M/year. For the year 2008, net broadband adds, 1/3rd wireless, dropped 42% from 2,632M to 1,520M. The cost for U-Verse is now less than $300/home passed, with the cost to connect each home dropping.

Randall explained the cut was not due to the impracticality of meeting their plan, announced in the 2007 annual report. Instead “We had a build plan that was requiring a rapid ramp in force, and then you'd have to come down in force as you got to certain points in the build plan. It's a more elegant build plan is really all we have done here.”

U-Verse now is offering 2 HD channels. They are having success with a wireless + U-Verse offer, accepting the reality that landline voice is going away. They've cut the data rate for HD, which led to some complaints but was acceptable to most customers. People not buying AT&T's TV package can get up to 18 megabit down service. The 2 line bonding, essential to offer TV as widely as desired, wasn't mentioned and is presumably Q2 or later as I've previously reported.

The 30M+ AT&T customers outside of U-Verse territory are the largest group in history to see a drop in DSL where not confronting fiber. U-Verse added 264K customers Q4 to pass 1 million. T now includes 121K 3G LaptopConnect wireless cards. They reached 357K “Total broadband.” I obtained the -27K figure by adding 264 + 121 to get 385 then subtracting the 357 total. To AT&T's credit, the details were clear to anyone who read carefully.

They announced the 1/3rd cutback the same day Jay Rockefeller announced several billion dollars in tax credits to “promote broadband deployment.” Since T is half the U.S., Verizon is about flat, and cable is adding little to previous plans, Rockefeller's credits will almost certainly fail. The 1/3rd cutback leaves them probably receiving over $100M if the Rockefeller proposal clears the House, depending on how many of those homes are in "underserved" areas.“We are a wireless company.” Randall Stephenson