CES: AT&T Preps Multiroom DVR for U-verse

AT&T plans to roll out a multiroom DVR feature to its U-verse IPTV service in the coming weeks, hoping to keep pace with similar offerings from Verizon and a few top cable operators, as products evolve beyond video delivery to the home toward media sharing in them.

The telco has already installed the Microsoft Media Room software needed to support the feature, which enables content on a single DVR device to be viewed and handled in other rooms of a dwelling over media, including standard twisted-pair wire.

“We’re just waiting to enable it, so we’re looking at as little as several weeks or a month,” said Dan York, a senior programming executive with AT&T, at the Consumer Electronics Show. He added that given the widespread use of DVRs, attributed largely to their convenience, a multiroom DVR should prove popular with its U-verse IPTV customer base.

New TV entrants such as Verizon and AT&T have been quick to embrace and deploy the feature, which extends the functionality of the DVR throughout the home. Microsoft announced commercial availability of the functionality in its Media Room package at the show Monday.

AT&T is perhaps Microsoft’s largest North American Media Room customer.

The companies marked last year by extending the convenience of the DVR box by enabling customers to remotely control it via the Internet and wireless devices. This lets their telco TV customers program the DVR to record shows and or movies without having to be in the same room as the unit itself.

Verizon initially took a standards-based approach when building its similar offering using parts of home networking specs from the Digital Living Network Association, but added what it called its “secret sauce” to fill in other spaces so it could offer the feature in an expeditious manner in a competitive market.

Jeff Weber, a top U-verse executive at AT&T, reiterated the telco’s plans to surpass the 1 million service customer mark by yearend.

AT&T Inc. www.att.com
Digital Living Network Alliance www.dlna.org
Microsoft Corp. www.microsoft.com
Verizon Communications Inc. www.verizon.com

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