IPTV Agreements Still On AT&T's To-Do List
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By Hinkel, Nate  TED WAGNON, AT&T ARKANSAS' LONG time spokesman, has spent much of the past year on the road preparing for the telecom giant's coming launch of Internet Protocol Television service.
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AT&T wants to trim the deal's scope, The Wall Street Journal reports.
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The U.S. Federal Communications Commission this week hopes to do what Congress could not accomplish this year -- help AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications get into the television business faster.
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(Source: AT&T) Optical network solutions from AT&T provide scalable, secure bandwidth to keep the health care provider and the patient connected, despite increasing network traffic.
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Collaborations to help spread WiMAX are still up in the air.
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AT&T is still struggling to convey the merger of itself with Cingular, and is taking another crack at its brand identity to beef up the message. But it is dangerously staying on the fence about who it is as a company.
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AT&amp;T, the US telecoms group, and a team of subcontractors have won a contract valued at up to $1bn to design, build and manage a secure IP-based global network for the US government
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AT&T Inc  said on Friday it  plans to participate in an upcoming government auction of  airwaves in the 700-Megahertz spectrum band, but it is still  deciding whether to bid for a portion of the spectrum reserved  for open access.
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AT&T has placed in review its media planning and buying account as it seeks to consolidate media chores, now handled by five agencies, at one of them.
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(InfoWorld) - MicrosoftÂ and newly merged Alcatel-LucentÂ have partnered to deliver Internet-based television technology to Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel), the companies said Thursday. But it's not business as usual: the two partners could be headed to court over alleged patent infringements and, depending on the outcome of their dispute, may choose to go their separate ways. SingTel is the second Asian carrier to test Microsoft's IPTV (Internet Protocol television) software, bringing the total number of operators either trialing or commercially deploying the technology to 16. The deal is part of a partnership agreed in 2005 through which Alcatel-Lucent sells the Microsoft IPTV platform to smaller network operators, according to Ed Graczyk, director of marketing in the Microsoft TV unit. "We're selling our platform directly to around three dozen tier-one carriers and partnering with Alcatel-Lucent to sell to the tier-two and tier-three operators," Graczyk said in an interview on the sidelines of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Telecom World conference and exhibition in Hong Kong. The continued scope of that partnership, however, is now as fuzzy as the initial IPTV technology that Microsoft delivered to the first carrier customers of its early adopter program. In November,Â Alcatel filed lawsuits against MicrosoftÂ for several alleged patent infringements. The IPTV patents in question stem from the work of Oracle engineers who had developed fast-forward and rewind features for its video server technology. The patents were sold to a company Alcatel later acquired. Alcatel now maintains that some of the technology developed by the Oracle engineers has resurfaced in Microsoft TV IPTV Edition software as a result of several members of the original development team joining the U.S. software company. Both Alcatel and Lucent had developed IPTV expertise prior to their merger. Together, they now appear keen to stake their own claim. "We can offer carriers choice," John Giere, chief marketing officer at Alcatel-Lucent, said during an interview in Hong Kong. "We can provide the Microsoft solution if that is what carriers want. But with our technology, we can also provide an open system with open interfaces. Many operators don't want to be overly dependent on Microsoft, which offers a proprietary system." Even after forming its partnership with Microsoft in 2005, Alcatel continued to fund its Open Media Platform (OMP), which it acquired from iMagicTV Inc. The technology is deployed by a number of operators including Free in France and Telecom Italia. Another IPTV system in the Alcatel-Lucent camp is the MyViewTV platform developed in conjunction with Spain's TelefÃ³nica SA. Around 400,000 consumers are currently using the company's IPTV systems. The SingTel project is based on a combination of Alcatel-Lucent's services integration system and the Microsoft IPTV platform. It will include testing of broadcast TV and VOD (video on demand), with content featuring high-definition quality picture resolution.
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The relationship between Microsoft and Alcatel, who partnered on IPTV last year, has apparently turned sour. The French manufacturer has filed two lawsuits against Microsoft, alleging infringement of 7 patents related to digital video and network communication.
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If the cable operator's efforts to partner with leading gadget makers are successful, those set-top boxes could be a thing of the past.Photo: Comcast's AnyPlay device
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Company is developing a fiber network that will deliver TV and data to homes.
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The head of AT&T's legal team said during a panel discussion at CES this week that the carrier is considering using technology that can filter and block copyrighted content.
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(InfoWorld) - Feeling that its partnership with Yahoo Inc. yields fewer benefits than in the past, AT&T Inc. wants to trim the deal's scope and seek more favorable conditions for itself, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday. Specifically, AT&T seeks a revision of how the companies share ad and Internet access revenue in their years-long agreement to sell co-branded broadband services to consumers in the U.S., the Journal reported, quoting anonymous sources. Negotiations have already begun for renewal of the pact, which ends in April 2008 and which Yahoo originally struck in 2001 with AT&T predecessor SBC Communications Inc. Back in 2001, AT&T needed Yahoo more than it does today to market its broadband services to consumers, because broadband is now in higher demand, the article states. Yahoo gets between US$200 million and $250 million in annual revenue from the partnership, and could see its bottom line affected if those payments were reduced, according to the Journal. The profit margins on these AT&T fees are generally higher than the margins Yahoo enjoys from its other operations, the paper said. More indirectly, traffic to Yahoo's Web sites and usage of its services could be affected if the pact is scaled back, the Journal said. The joint customers obtain, along with the AT&T broadband connection, a suite of Internet tools from Yahoo, including e-mail accounts, PC security software, a photo management application and exclusive videos. Industry analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group doesn't find the news surprising. "I don't think Yahoo is providing AT&T with that much value and I'm not convinced that Yahoo is getting that much value from AT&T," he said. In 2001, AT&T needed an Internet company to partner against the combination of the newly merged AOL and Time Warner Inc., but the once popular trend of selling Internet access along with online services has pretty much disappeared, Enderle said. "Now AOL is nowhere near the power it once was, and people are shopping for their Internet connection separate from their [online] services. The need to have both [tied] has gone away," he said. Meanwhile, AT&T hasn't helped Yahoo much to combat the rise of Google Inc., Enderle said. "Like anything else, partnerships are formed when there is an advantage and they tend to fall apart when that advantage goes away. Here, the market conditions that created the partnership in the first place have largely evaporated," Enderle said. Asked for comment, AT&T sent a joint statement that says the companies have "the most successful partnership in the industry" thanks in large part to the ongoing dialogue they maintain. "Though it is not appropriate to speculate on future plans, we frequently collaborate on our existing partnership to ensure that we deliver the most innovative broadband experience to our customers now and in the future," the statement reads.
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Tech companies pushing for access to spectrum &quot;white spaces&quot; and for net neutrality and open access on broadband and wireless networks have an antiproperty agenda, said one critic on Wednesday.Open access and other conditions on the 700MHz spectrum currently being auctioned by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC)&#160;may be suppressing bids and limiting the uses winning bidders have for the spectrum, added Scott Cleland, founder of telecom analyst firm The Precursor Group, speaking at the U.S. Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee&#39;s 2008 State of the &#39;Net Conference in Washington, D.C. Cleland voiced a contrarian view during a discussion of spectrum policy; other speakers called on the U.S. Congress and the FCC to open up more spectrum to unlicensed uses.Open access in the ongoing 700MHz auction at the FCC, widening fair-use rights under copyright, net neutrality, and white-spaces access to television spectrum are all part of a broad and hidden agenda pushed by some tech companies and civil liberties groups, said Cleland, whose company operates the anti-net-neutrality advocacy group NetCompetition.org.&quot;Everybody throws the word &#39;open&#39; around and says open is wonderful,&quot; he said. &quot;But &#39;open&#39; means communal. It means not owned.&quot;Other speakers suggested mobile networks aren&#39;t open enough. Mobile voice providers Verizon Wireless and AT&amp;T have embraced a version of open access in recent months, but they still limit innovative mobile applications, said Jason Devitt, founder of secretive startup Skydeck and cofounder of mobile-phone-application provider Vindigo.Verizon Wireless in November announced it would open its network this year to outside devices, but that doesn&#39;t help mobile application developers, Devitt said. Most of Verizon&#39;s customers will still get their handsets from Verizon, and developers will have to get the company&#39;s permission to include their applications on Verizon-sold phones, he said.&quot;If you&#39;re a developer of mobile applications, Verizon&#39;s announcement makes no difference,&quot; he said.Cleland blasted the FCC for including open-access requirements in about a third of the 62MHz of spectrum in the 700MHz band currently being auctioned, saying some of the requirements may have driven away bidders. In the 22MHz block of spectrum called the C block, the winning bidder must allow users to bring such devices&#160;as mobile phones from other carriers and allow outside applications to run on the network.The FCC&#39;s 700MHz auction began last Thursday, and after 16 rounds of bidding through Wednesday, the high bid for the C block was nearly $4.3 billion, just short of the reserve price of $4.6 billion set by the FCC. High bids for the complete auction totalled $10.8 billion, and the FCC had expected to raise at least $10 billion. The auction will likely continue for several days, depending on bidding action.But Cleland criticized the FCC for imposing conditions on the C block and the D block of spectrum, a 10MHz block that the FCC wants to pair with another 10MHz set aside for public safety. The winning bidder of the D block would be required to build a nationwide mobile and broadband network with the two pieces of spectrum, with the network shared by public safety agencies and commercial users.As of late Wednesday, the D block had received a high bid of $472 million, far short of the $1.3 billion reserve price demanded by the FCC. The FCC may have to re-auction the D block without some of the requirements, Cleland said.When the FCC sets several conditions on spectrum, &quot;the bidders have the freedom not to play,&quot; Cleland said. &quot;An auction is a party. You don&#39;t get people to come to your party if you make it not fun and not a happy place.&quot;Other speakers disagreed with Cleland. The FCC needs to push forward with a proposal that would open up the unused &quot;white spaces&quot; in the spectrum bands used by U.S. television broadcasters, said Michael Calabrese, director of the Spectrum Policy Program at think tank the New America Foundation.Opening up this unused spectrum, which allows the long-range transmission of signals, would allow companies to offer wireless broadband services, particularly in rural areas, Calabrese said.TV broadcasters have opposed unlicensed spectrum use in the white spaces, saying the technology to avoid existing signals is unproven. The FCC is currently testing white-space devices.
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By Richard Locker locker@commercialappealcom  NASHVILLE - AT&T's costly yearlong effort to win approval of a bill in the state legislature to streamline its entry into Tennessee's cable television market is dead for the year.  Legislative sponsors of the bill, Reps.