AT&T is offering free voice-over-cable service for five months to residential customers in 10 cities starting Friday.
The telecom giant is looking to attract more customers to its cable services, which include voice, data and traditional cable TV offerings. One reason for recruiting customers is to ensure future revenue; AT&T also needs to justify its $110 billion investment in cable network acquisitions.
Customers in California's Bay area, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Hartford, Pittsburgh, Portland, Salt Lake City, Seattle and St. Louis can sign up for free voice service from now until mid-November. The service includes unlimited local calling, 5 hours of long-distance service, call waiting, caller ID and three-way calling. AT&T typically charges about $37 per month for its cable-over-voice services.
AT&T says that it can support voice over its extensive cable network in about 19 cities, but chose the 10 named markets because they are best equipped to support the increased traffic that AT&T expects, a company spokesman says. By year-end the service provider expects to have at least 75% of its cable network ready to support voice and two-way data traffic.
AT&T is limiting its voice-over-cable service to residential customers, but will soon launch an offering for business users.
AT&T: www.att.com
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