Coog-verse

I've been hot on AT&T's advanced TV service since they rolled it out here last year. Fiber to the home or to the neigborhood is pretty darn fast plus their channel line-up is very strong. As I've been saying on my show, if you can get it...get it.

Local U-verse subscriptions will soon increase by 1,000 in one fell swoop with this announcement about the University of Houston's Master Plan:

The University of Houston and AT&T Inc. today announced the nation's first planned deployment of AT&T U-verse services into student housing on a college campus. The cutting-edge TV and high speed Internet services will be included in every room of a 547,000-square-foot residence hall under construction for graduate and professional students.

The Calhoun Lofts, next to the University of Houston's C.T. Bauer College of Business, will contain more than 700 one- and two-bedroom apartments with 1,000 AT&T U-verse connections, along with 10,000 square feet of retail space. School officials chose Internet Protocol-based television (IPTV) as the next-generation video service best suited for the university's next-generation living space.

The university's new $108 million residence hall broke ground in fall 2007 and is scheduled for completion in 2009.

I work with AT&T on several projects so I have been fortunate to speak with local executives often for the inside scoop. They are furiously hiring new installers to keep up with the demand. Now there's a nice problem to have.

In an email to me this morning from VP/GM Ed Cholerton, he responded to my questions on how they went about securing this deal and if more similar deals are in the works.

We have a great partnership with them on a wide variety of fronts...from services we provide them to funding their telecommunications technology lab. That partnership, coupled with their desire to foster a leading edge image for prospective students, led to their decision.

Obviously we're happy about it. Although its the first one we've done, we expect that we'll have lots of future opportunities as well.