AT&T blames Microsoft for IPTV delays

Ever seen a blue-screen of death on your television? AT&T is blaming buggy Microsoft software for its painfully slow rollout of U-Verse. U-Verse -- formerly known as Project Lightspeed -- attempts to deliver TV to the home using existing copper telephone lines. Conversely, Verizon's Fios service uses fiber-to-the-premise (FTTP) to deliver the sort of bandwidth consumers associate with cable. In general, U-Verse users have reported spotty service.


One knowledgeable user has posted a very detailed review of U-Verse. Generally, he feels the service just isn't mature enough and the DSL bandwidth is lacking:

...this brings up another major flaw in the U-VERSE, at the moment you can have up to 4 receivers in your house, all of their receivers are HD. The flaw is at this time you can only watch 1 HD channel on any given receiver in your house at a time. This means only 1 receiver can watch a HD channel, if a second person in the house wants to watch something in HD they will see an error message that all HD streams are in use to turn to a non HD channel or it gives you the option to boot the other receiver out of the HD stream it's tuned to...

One thing is clear: Microsoft ain't to blame for the limited bandwidth associated with AT&T's technology choice for U-Verse.

One thought for AT&T: less money on lobbyists and more on R&D and fiber might help.