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Steve Taylor and Larry Hettick offer news and analysis on the latest in IP convergence from fixed-mobile convergence, presence management, IP video and unified communications.
AT&T announced a VoIP service for consumers called AT&T U-verseSM Voice. The IP Multimedia Subsystem-based service is designed
to integrate AT&T wireline and wireless voice, broadband and TV services. It moves AT&T closer to its "three screens" vision
of offering customers common content, connectivity and applications on the television, computer and phone.
Although the service is currently only available in Detroit, it will be expanded to more markets in 2008. The service is positioned
to compete with the VoIP offerings included in cable company triple-play bundles.
Like other VoIP services, U-verse Voice includes standard calling features like caller ID, click-to-call, a unified mailbox for wired and wireless messages, and an online management portal. And like other AT&T calling plans, AT&T wireless customers who subscribe to an AT&T Unity Worldwide Calling plan can call any AT&T U-verse Voice number without using up their wireless minutes.
But unlike other VoIP offers, the service also offers some U-verse video subscribers TV-screen access to call history and a click to call feature from a TV remote. Another distinction is that the service is built on a carrier-class IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) platform supplied by Alcatel-Lucent that integrates third-party components including IPTV software provided by Microsoft.
AT&T will still continue to market its CallVantage VoIP service to customers who don’t buy U-verse video services, particularly customers who live outside AT&T’s local phone service territory.
Our comments: We predicted that AT&T and Verizon would both offer a VoIP service as part of their consumer triple-play packages in 2008, and we also expected that a carrier would start to offer commercial VoIP services over an IMS platform this year. But frankly, we didn’t expect it so soon, and we will watch with interest to see if Verizon follows suit and also watch to see if either company is brave enough to offer a fully standard IMS-based enterprise VoIP solution this year.
Steve Taylor is president of Distributed Networking Associates and publisher/editor-in-chief of Webtorials. Larry Hettick is a principal analyst at Current Analysis.
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Comments (2)
RE: AT&T moves ahead with IMS, unveils VoIP service for its IPTVBy Joe McKinnon on January 31, 2008, 6:51 pmIs AT&T proving one of the promises of IMS? Perpetual betas of web2.0 are at one end of the spectrum & the traditional slowness (at times for good reasons) of...
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RE: AT&T moves ahead with IMS, unveils VoIP service for its IPTV customersBy Prabhat_Kumar on January 30, 2008, 10:47 amAT&T is headed in the right direction with IMS. The challenge lies ahead to create Quadplay offers and Mobile media and content distribution platforms for both consumer...
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