AT&T: 1 million U-verse subscribers by end of '08

This morning, the head of AT&T said his company expects to have attained one million U-Verse subscribers by the end of 2008, and coverage for 30 million by 2010.

At a meeting of financial analysts in New York City this morning, where he touted continued double-digit revenue growth for his company going into next year, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson made some bold predictions for his U-verse triple/quadruple-play media service. He reported AT&T was on target to attain one million U-verse subscribers by the end of this year.

But according to a company statement this morning, Stephenson also predicted the service would be available to as many as 30 million "living units" (households) by the end of 2010. He attributed this rapid rise to "significant progress" in the U-verse deployment.

Last month, BetaNews reported that AT&T's grand plans for a high speed IP-based Television/Telephone/Internet package had actually been pared down, from the original 19 million, to a more modest -- though costlier -- 17 million customers by the end of '08.

At the end of Q3 2007, availability of AT&T's fiber optic/copper phone line (FTTN) system was reported to be around 5.5 million households, with 126,000 subscribers. AT&T plans availability to be in the neighborhood of 8 million households by the end of the year.

Availability is also called "reach," which is the watch-word to look for when the company mixes subscriber projections with availability projections. With U-verse's reach expanding by 2.5 million households per quarter, U-verse's availability projections seem more reasonable.

This means that in order to reach Stephenson's forecasted goal, 874,000 subscribers must be added in this fiscal quarter and the next four, or roughly 1,900 new subscribers per day. This is just under triple the uptake rate the company was reported to be showing in June 2007.

AT&T's goals are not to be called impossible, however, as the increased budget for U-Verse's rollout may be used to facilitate such growth.