by Jeremy W. Steele
October 29, 2008
Lansing State Journal
http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/article/20081029/NEWS03/810290348/1004/NEWS03

AT&T Inc. has taken the first step toward rolling out its cable television service in Lansing.

The Lansing City Council on Monday approved a video service franchise agreement with the San Antonio-based telecommunications giant.

The agreement gives AT&T permission to operate a cable TV service in the city. It joins Philadelphia-based Comcast Corp. and Lansing-based Arialink.

AT&T spokesman Joe Steele declined to say when the company would roll out its U-verse service, which uses fiber-optic and copper lines to carry digital television signals into homes.

"This is just the first step in bringing choice to Lansing consumers," Steele said. "Our goal is to reach out to customers and be able to deliver it to customers as quickly as possible."

The service faced slow going when it was launched in San Antonio in 2006 and prompted some analysts to question whether glitches were turning off customers. But it's grown to 781,000 customers and is available in parts of nearly 200 communities in Michigan, he said, including parts of Ann Arbor, Detroit, Flint, Grand Rapids and Saginaw. Steele declined to say what other area communities AT&T is working to bring TV service.
More competition

AT&T led an effort in 2006 to reform local cable franchise agreements and open communities for cable competition. At the time, the company pledged to spend $620 million upgrading its Michigan network to handle its TV product.

Increasingly, traditional cable and telephone companies have become competitors as both offer the others' services.

In Lansing, for instance, Comcast began offering telephone service in April 2007 along with its traditional cable TV and Internet products. That's helping the company to pick up customers, officials said.

"Comcast competes every day across all three of our product lines with a variety of different providers," comcast Michigan spokesman Patrick Paterno said.

Lansing-based Arialink also sells bundled packages of TV, telephone and Internet service to select apartment complexes in the area. Arialink telephone and Internet service is more widely available in the region.

Lansing collects about $1.4 million a year in per-user fees from cable TV providers, spokesman Randy Hannan said. About $400,000 is used to pay for government and educational TV channels on local cable services.
New plan in works

Hannan said city officials are working on a plan to revamp the city's public access service. That could include a new production facility and partnerships with area school and college broadcast programs.

The 2006 reform of local cable franchising allowed Comcast to close its Miller Road public access production facility, where shows could be taped or edited.