Save Access

from: Capital Times

AT&T still not definite on U-verse here

Jeff Richgels — 4/28/2008 11:26 am

AT&T is looking to hire 200 more technicians to install and service its U-verse TV service, which now is available to more than 200,000 homes in the Milwaukee, Racine and Sheboygan areas.

But even though the jobs include positions in south central Wisconsin, indicating that U-verse may be offered here in the near future, the company still isn't saying when the Madison area might get U-verse.

from The Business Journal

Tuesday, March 4, 2008 - 2:55 PM CST
Cable providers in Wisconsin seek statewide franchises
The Business Journal of Milwaukee

Five Wisconsin cable and video service providers - Charter Communications Inc., Time Warner Cable, AT&T Inc., CenturyTel and Comcast Cable - have applied for statewide video franchises under legislation passed last year.

Note: This is an article from earlier this month, and prior to the request of the The National Association of Real Estate Brokers to have the Attorney Generals of five states investigate AT&T (according to Light Reading NAREB has since backed down).

from: Milwaukee Biz Blog

from: ZDNet

January 31st, 2008
Tornado destroyed woman’s house: then she gets this $2,025.45 bill from Time Warner Cable
Posted by Russell Shaw @ 3:21 pm

From Wisconsin’s Kenosha News comes this story that after a January 7 tornado demolished her home, and ensuing rain and snow made it a bear to fix, a woman from the area has received a $2,025.45 bill from her (now former, well duh) cable television service.

from: Nieman Watchdog

Wisconsin: A case study in how corporations get the legislation they want

COMMENTARY | January 31, 2008

Telecom and broadband expert and activist Bruce Kushnick describes how model corporate bills get introduced and enacted in Wisconsin, to the detriment of the common good. (Second of two articles.)

from: The Madison Times

Reverse for AT&T's U-verse video?

Jeff Richgels — 1/24/2008 3:45 pm

Could AT&T be out of the video business before it even brings its U-verse service to Madison?

That's possible, according to TVPredictions.com president Phillip "Swanni" Swann, who predicts AT&T will be out of the video business within 12 to 18 months, CedMagazine.com reported.

from: Light Reading

Exclusive Photos: Fire to the Node, Part II
JANUARY 22, 2008

Last week, Light Reading broke the news that AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T - message board) has set out to replace the 17,000 Avestor batteries providing backup power to its U-verse network equipment cabinets in neighborhoods all over America. (See AT&T Begins Massive Battery Replacement.)

from: WAPC

January 17, 2008

Dear PEG Access Television Supporters:

The video competition bill is now law.

You and WAPC have spent the last year working hard to ensure AB207 would not spell the end to PEG access television in Wisconsin. I can report that we have succeeded, yet even the Governor, who signed the bill on December 21, admitted concerns about PEG's future under this law -- Act 42 -- and urged lawmakers to consider remedial legislation.

Wauwatosa residents had expressed safety concerns over AT&T cabinets

Nearly a year before the recent explosion of an AT&T VRAD cabinet in Wauwatosa Wisconsin, some local residents had expressed safety concerns about the large boxes. At a February 12, 2007, City Planning Commission Meeting, residents opposed the installation of a VRAD box and had sent emails and information to the Commission making specific reference to the fires and explosions in Houston Texas.

Another AT&T U-verse VRAD Cabinet Explodes

Updates 1/15/08:
AT&T Begins Massive Battery Replacement (Light Reading).
Wauwatosa residents had expressed safety concerns over AT&T cabinets (Save Access)
Additional Photos (Light Reading 1/22/08)

In the early hours of Christmas morning, an AT&T VRAD cabinet (DSLAM) exploded in the city of Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. Only days earlier, Governor Jim Doyle had signed Assembly Bill 207, a statewide cable franchise bill pushed through by AT&T despite the best efforts of municipalities and public interest advocates to stop it. A saveaccess reader concerned over the lack of any local or regional news coverage sent us the following note with the attached photos: