AT&T pushes back TV rollout

AT&T MOBILITY HAS DELAYED its launch of MediaFLO USA Inc.’s broadcast mobile TV service to early 2008. More than eight months after committing to launching the service by the end of the year, and seven months after Verizon Wireless launched the service last March, the No. 1 carrier has confirmed that its subscribers won’t enjoy broadcast mobile TV until early next year.
The carrier is now aiming to launch the MediaFLO-powered service in January or February.
“Because it’s brand new, we just want to make sure the product is going to be well received by our customers,” AT&T Mobility spokesman Mark Siegel told RCR Wireless News. “We just want to make sure we really have it nailed.”
AT&T declined to comment further on what might have caused the delay, only saying that there have been no issues with hardware or applications in several months of testing.
“I think they’re much, much better off taking the time to get it right,” said Iain Gillott, founder and president of iGR.
Gillott doubts the delay will affect either of the companies’ earnings for the year or slow down the adoption of mobile TV services overall.
“I wouldn’t think it’s going to have any impact at all actually. I don’t think you’ll see any impact in their earnings,” he said. “When Verizon announces their earnings, they don’t even mention it.”
Perhaps AT&T suffered delays on the programming side of things as is presumably aims to differentiate the offering from Verizon.
“Maybe they’re trying to do something clever on the programming,” said Keith Mallinson, analyst at Wise Harbor. “When you’re a follower you’ve got to be at least as good as the other. They want to be able to come in and say it’s better somehow than what you can get from Verizon.”
Kanishka Agarwal, VP of mobile media at Nielsen Mobile, said he wouldn’t read too much into the delay. “Video is still growing very rapidly,” he said. “I don’t think that delay by AT&T on the broadcast side is going to stem the growth.”
While wireless carriers are continuing to innovate on new types of video services, Agarwal believes other factors will drive adoption more rapidly. “Those things are price of services, price of devices that are video capable, quality and then finally the programming,” he said.
“Launching broadcast services is not cheap. It’s not easy,” Agarwal added.
“We are talking about something very, very slight,” AT&T’s Siegel said. “We and MediaFLO both feel we need to take the time to make sure the user experience is going to be optimal.”
Other comments from the carrier hinted that perhaps it was more a marketing decision that anything else. “Frankly, January/February is a better time to launch a product than December,” Siegel added.
But Mallinson pointed out that the holiday season is an extremely desirable time for carriers to launch new services and devices. “I’m sure they would’ve like to make it for the holiday season,” he added. “Maybe they just didn’t get their timing right.”
MediaFLO declined to comment and directed all questions regarding the delay to AT&T Mobility.