As if almost responding to our recent skepticism on rollouts of the U-verse IPTV service, AT&T announced the initial launch of service in limited areas across the Milwaukee and Racine metropolitan areas. AT&T intends to increase availability throughout the area.

For those in that area, AT&T has a promotion where new customers can receive two months of free TV with 60-day money back guarantee through June 30. See their website for details.

That now places AT&T U-verse services in parts of 13 markets across five states. AT&T now puts the tally at nearly 7,000 U-verse customers in markets across the United States.

Optical Entertainment Network (OEN) has launched its FISION Triple Play Plus Services in Houston. OEN's bundle of services includes IPTV services, VoIP and symmetrical broadband Internet services at speeds of up to 10 Mbps. OEN has made this service available to residential customers, multiple dwelling units and business customers starting in the Northwest section of Houston.

OEN boasts a very large channel line up with over 85 premium networks and over 40 HD channels and numerous niche channels. All FISION Triple Play Packages include over 260 channels as well as up to 10 Mbps Ultimate Internet complimented with VoIP. Additionally, OEN has acquired programming agreements for IPTV distribution from television networks in the US, Latin America, South Asia and Europe with programming in 13 foreign languages.

Calix will see a an increased presence in Canada thanks to its selection by Téléphone Guèvremont, a Quebec-based ILEC, and by Maskatel and Téléphone Drummond, CLEC affiliates of Téléphone Guèvremont. The project will utilize Calix C7 multiservice access platforms to extend new fiber transport facilities to Drummondville, Quebec, overbuilding the current operator. From there, the Calix C7 will deliver voice, high-speed internet access, and eventually IPTV services over short 1.5 Km loops using ADSL2+ and VDSL2 technology. Greenfield locations will be built out using 2.4 Gbps gigabit passive optical network fiber to the premises facilities.

Etex Telephone Cooperative, Inc., a local exchange carriers in Texas, has purchased multiple products of Occam Networks's Broadband Loop Carrier system to provide its customers with Triple Play.

Etex is planning a mixed copper and fiber triple play deployment.

NewMarket Technology, Inc. will introduce its Moviii IPTV service April 14-19 at the National Association of Broadcasters conference in Las Vegas. NewMarket was selected as a distributor for Moviii.com in the United States. NewMarket plans to develop additional content partnerships to extend the digital IPTV service beyond an initial Chinese language content launch.

Moviii.com has over 600 classic Chinese movies and 6000 television series episodes as well as 4500 music videos, and 300 cartoons.

SaskTel, the Saskatchewan-based telecommunications company, will invest CAD118 million (USD100 million) in 2007 to maintain and upgrade its provincial network. CAD12 million of that will be going to build out SaskTel's Max IPTV service to meet customer demand, make ongoing enhancements and add new features such as personal video recorder service.

As part of a five-year CAD310 million program, SaskTel will continue to increase bandwidth by bringing fiber optic cable closer to homes and business. In 2007, the second year of the Next Generation Access Infrastructure (NGAI) program, SaskTel will invest $23 million to continue to increase the bandwidth of SaskTel's access network.

Sky Angel, a U.S. direct broadcast satellite (DBS) provider, has agreed to provide more than 30 TV and radio channels of Christian and family programming to ShifTV for delivery via a high-speed Internet connection to Canadians' televisions using a set-top box provided by ShifTV. Among the advantages is the ability to watch programming through the TV and surf the Internet on the computer simultaneously using the same high-speed connection.

Telecommunications Online interviews Bill DeMuth, SureWest Communications' CTO, who explains the company's goal to move away from hybrid networking solution of fiber and coax to a pure fiber connection. SureWest's CTO states that fiber is the only answer if they are to reach their objective of providing 100 megabits of bandwidth to enable differentiating features such as multiple HD channels enhanced services. "The IPTV industry as a whole has been a little too much of a me-too type of service.”

Be sure to check out the full article.

And in case you missed it, be sure to read AT&T's opposing viewpoint of why they don't need FTTH.

Verimatrix, setting the standard in content security technologies that enhance the value of pay-TV networks, announced that Falcon Broadband has selected the Verimatrix Video Content Authority System (VCAS) to provide digital video content security over the carrier’s IP network. Falcon plans on launching the new IPTV service in Q2 2007 when it has completed its dedicated fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) IP network in the Colorado marketplace.

Alcatel-Lucent announced that Hawaiian Telcom, the incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) in Hawaii, has selected Alcatel-Lucent's Triple Play Service Delivery Architecture as the blueprint for network transformation that will enable the delivery of new and innovative consumer and enterprise service offerings.

Occam Networks Inc., a leading supplier of innovative Ethernet and IP-based loop carrier equipment to telecommunications companies, announced that ten local telcos in Canada’s Ontario province have selected Occam Network’s BLC 6000 solution to upgrade their networks. Occam has seen tremendous success in Ontario over the last 18 months, and is now serving two-thirds of its independent telcos.

Richmond, Virginia has launched a lawsuit against Cavalier Telephone for providing IPTV service without a franchise agreement. Cavalier Telephone has been offering their new IPTV service since June and it goes without saying that city is not happy that Cavalier has been avoiding the taxes and associated fees.

According to an article in the Richmond Times Dispatch, the mayor of Richmond informed Cavalier on Oct. 27th that they must obtain a franchise agreement to offer television service. If this is accurate, my question is why did Richmond wait five months before communicating or putting the heat on Cavalier? Clearly, they were aware prior to June that Cavalier was launching a television service.

Richmond officials are in talks with Cavalier but that Cavalier must halt their service until an agreement is reached. The city is also asking that Cavalier retro-pays for all IPTV services offered dating back to the launch.

Optical Entertainment Network (OEN announced that it has signed an IPTV carriage agreement with Southern Entertainment Television (TheSET). Through this agreement OEN's FISION service will offer its subscribers the following four channels: Southern Gospel Music, Bluegrass Music, Classic Black Gospel Music and Classic Country Music.

The world of next-generation communications and entertainment is expanding in the Alamo City. AT&T Inc. has expanded availability in San Antonio of AT&T U-verse services, which now include High Definition (HD) programming and other new features that set it apart from other offerings in the marketplace.

The new features, available to new and existing customers, include HD technology, web-remote access to DVR, ability to record up to four programs at once, an expanded lineup of available programming, and new set-top boxes.

AT&T has added a reported 30 High-Definition channels to their U-Verse IPTV service, viewable with the Motorola VIP 1216 HD set-top box. The HD programming lineup will first appear in San Antonio, where the service was initially rolled out.

The HD service is still being tested but AT&T plans to deploy the service in the near future. Based on the initial reviews, the quality is superb.

The downfall? Users can only stream 1 HD channel at a time per household.

The HD programming package will tally up a $10 charge on the monthly bill but AT&T plans to provide an introductory two month free offer for the service until March.