Alan Throws His Own U-verse Party for a European Telco Operator and Their Strategic Partner

A few weeks ago, I was contacted by a European Teleco operator who advised me that they were coming for meetings with AT&T in San Antonio and wanted to meet and get my view on the user experience.

Well, not to miss an opportunity to showcase our city, my installation of both TimeWarner cable and AT&T’s IPTV platforms, and show them some real Texas hospitality, I invited them to my home followed by dinner at the Liberty Bar.

I went to their hotel and discovered that 7 people would not fit into my BMW X3.  So, 3 people hopped in my car and the other 4 took a taxi.  Then, it was off to Alan’s house.

Nice guy, and self-appointed San Antonio IPTV Ambassador that I am, here’s what I did:

1.  Gave a quick drive through Alamo Heights, which is not like the suburbs where many of the installations of U-verse are going.  They all commented on what a great area it was and how nice our city is.

2.  Pulled out the high ball glasses and offered some killer whiskey that I bought at duty free at Ben Gurion Airport.   They declined the booze, but did take some Perrier.

3.  I cranked up the home theatre, told them about Bjorns, showed the TimeWarner system, watched some HD TV, and even played part of a previously recorded Coldplay concert. 

4.  I showed them the wiring from Time Warner on one side of the house, the wiring from AT&T on the other side of the house. (I think, but I cannot verify that I am the only person in the US who is running both cable and ITPV in their home.)

5. Then it was off to IPTV land in another room in the house where I gave my elevator pitch on the system, the interface, and my favorite thing – showing how your fancy TV becomes a dumb terminal and shows an IP address.

After the demo, we called another cab and proceeded to the Liberty Bar, where we dined on great wine and Texas T-bone steak.

Next week, I will be blogging about what I learned, while still keeping the confidentiality agreement in place. 

If you are a global telco, government agency, or key supplier / strategic partner to AT&T and are coming to San Antonio, I’d welcome a visit to my house, and of course, dinner. While we have some amazing Texan or Mexican joints to eat at, I'll cook at home if you are sick of restaurant food. (Low salt, kosher, veggie, vegan, etc. can be accomodated)

I sign NDA’s and if you don't me to, I won't name you in my blog.  My goal in doing this is to show you a real world installation, what a great place San Antonio is to work and live, and learn from each other.   I also think that competing Telcos need to have a forum in which they can share and exchange ideas, learn about market issues, and see real world installations.  Maybe my house will become the start of the United Nations of IPTV.

I would also like to welcome financial analysts who come to San Antonio for briefings.  Frankly, I can’t read or understand AT&T’s balance sheet, but I sure can help you get an insight into a real world of ITPV and its potential disruption of the telecom and broadcast industries as we know it today.

Send me an email to: alan at weinkrantz dot com and join in the conversation.

Photo by Alan Weinkrantz shot on I-35 somewhere north of Austin (c) 2006

Comments

[Rocco764]

Alan,

Thanks for this blog. You obviously spend quite some time on this.

You admittedly focus primarily on the AT&T service using Microsoft's IPTV Edition software as if this is the first IPTV deployment.

IPTV was first deployed in the late 90's and as some of the research you have posted shows, currently supports millions of subscribers worldwide.

This is a far cry from the several hundred users in San Antonio.

Some examples of the worlds biggest IPTV deployments include: PCCW, Telefonica, Fastweb and Belgacom.

Perhaps the SATechblog can look to incorporate some comparative write-ups in the future by giving other examples of successful IPTV deployments.