It has always been just a matter of time before AT&T took its U-Verse content and brought it to the iPhone and of course the Apple iPad, and that has finally happened this week launching its U-Verse App on the App Store.
For those who don’t know U-Verse, it began life in 2004 when AT&T took two decisions ‘ to build fiber closer to 18 million US homes (since extended) and to adopt IPTV software from Microsoft ‘ the company has been selling the end results as a full on pay TV service, competing with cable for more than three years and has more than 2.5 million homes signed up for it in the US. Now it moves to the iPhone.
Most observers in the US have believed for a long time that Mobile TV is dead in the water, and that the massive mindshare that the iPhone holds would always mean that iTunes content, and now the far more impressive U-Verse content, would mean that this is the way to go for video on a handset.
But this remains a download to view application, with all the waiting that entails ‘ as well as being an application that can also control the home based Digital Video Recorder in U-Verse homes. There is no streaming involved in this, and as yet Apple has patently failed to deliver a streaming video experience from iTunes, even when connected over the AT&T WiFi network, instead of 3G cellular. The App is worth having even if you only use it to show you what’s on U-Verse and set your DVR remotely, but it will not feel like TV on the move.
So there is still no TV service on a phone in the US which you can simply switch on and stream, unless it’s the FLO TV service from Qualcomm which has just been put up for sale. Another service which is coming, uses a new form of ATSC called M/H, a variant of the local broadcast technology, which is now available in about 35% of TV markets in the US. This technology requires a single chip and antenna added to a mobile device to get free to air live streaming TV. This is being pushed by the Open Mobile Video Coalition, which hopes to see devices go on sale this year.
Last week we began to hear rumours that AT&T’s great rival Verizon, would offer its FiOS IPTV on a tablet which is coming out this year from Motorola. FiOS has 3 million homes, even more TV homes than AT&T U-Verse, but this is a completely different device ‘ it allows streaming from within the home so you can control and move TV streams from device to device around in a single home. It’s unsure whether or not a movie or TV show can be stored on this device and played when out of reach of the home.
AT&T has instead gone the other way coming up with a basic iPhone app which downloads files directly from a central server housing the U-Verse service. AT&T has consistently stopped people using its 3G to stream video for fear it would crash its network, but is happy to offer WiFi data plans with iPhones and iPads, to do this kind of heavy lifting at its 100,000s of hotspots. Of course you can use fixed line broadband or WiFi at home or at work as well.
As such, it is only a small incentive for more homes to take U-Verse, but we cannot see that it is of any generic use for people with iPhones who do not subscribe to the AT&T IPTV service ‘ so that’s around 108 million US homes that can’t use it.
Other TV Everywhere services from cable companies, like Comcast, either already have or will shortly add iPhone compatibility but are likely to offer streaming instead of a file download. The best use case for this AT&T App is possibly when something is playing at night when you are asleep and you can download it directly to your iPhone, after the fact, and watch it on the train or at work. That is except that using wi-fi it will probably take around 6 or 7 minutes to download an hour’s programming in the morning.
AT&T may later try to offer a tablet that connects to the home DVR and allows rapid copying of video to a portable device, but so far this is NOT it.
‘We’re making it possible for you to watch TV shows on your iPhone at no extra charge. It’s just one more valuable and innovative feature available on U-verse TV,’ said David Christopher, chief marketing officer, AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets. ‘Our U-verse multi-screen promise is now a reality for millions of U-verse TV customers, with content available on U-verse TV, U-verse Online, and today, U-verse Mobile. No cable provider comes close to matching the cross-platform experience we’re delivering today, and we’ll continue to add unique features that further integrate these screens.’
AT&T talked excitedly about this app was far back as last August. It hardly seems to have been worth writing home about.