AT&T (News - Alert) has reportedly cut its forecast for how many homes will have access to U-verse, the service that sends Internet-based TV through home phone lines.


According to its regulatory filing, AT&T expects U-verse to be available to 17 million homes at the end of next year, down from a previous estimate of 18 million.

The company said, according to Associate Press (AP), the delay is due to a shift in resources to prepare for the U-Verse rollout in the former BellSouth (News - Alert) Corp.—which it acquired last year for $86 billion—territory.

In addition, to prepare for the startup in the Southeastern region, AT&T has reportedly raised its estimate for capital spending on U-verse by $500 million for 2007 and 2008, bringing it to between $4.5 billion and $5 billion. According to the AP report, since the additional spending is for preparatory work, it won't result in U-verse being available to additional homes by 2008.

The report states that AT&T has already delayed the rollout schedule for the U-verse project several times. As late as May, the company had expected U-verse to be available to 19 million homes by the end of 2008.

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Anshu Shrivastava is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To see more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.