By Sharla Sikes

AT&T plans to unveil its new VoIP service, designed for IPTV customers. Called U-verseSM Voice, the IP multimedia subsystem-based service will work with T&T wireline and wireless voice, broadband and TV.

AT&T is currently only offering the service in Detroit, but has plans to expand throughout the rest of this year. U-verse is AT&T’s competition for other “triple play” communications packages consisting of voice, broadband and TV services.

AT&T offers caller ID, click-to-call, unified mailbox for all messages and an online management site for U-verse customers; not too different from most VoIP services out there. However, to set itself apart, AT&T has also included some U-verse video subscribers the ability to view call history on their TV screens, and a click-to-call feature operated by the TV remote. AT&T has built the service on an Alcatel-Lucent carrier-class IP Multimedia Subsystem platform, with Microsoft IPTV software.

For AT&T customers who don’t buy U-verse service, the company will still offer CallVantage VoIP.

“The launch of AT&T U-verse Voice is the next step in our vision to bring customers a complete set of wireless and wired services that work together seamlessly for them,” Jennifer Jones, vice president and general manager for Michigan at AT&T, said in a statement.

The ability to integrate phone with TV services for the end user may prove to be an attractive communications service.

It all sounds pretty nifty, but readers of Network World responded to the original newsletter claiming the new service could leave AT&T open to patent infringement lawsuits similar to those AT&T and others brought against Vonage last year. Network World’s Steve Taylor and Larry Hettrick responded.

“We know there are many suppliers involved in delivering AT&T’s new VoIP service…. IMS is an architectural model designed so vendors with different components can have a reference for interoperability.”

Even though many suppliers will be involved with AT&T’s system from the software to the ability to connect, Alcatel-Lucent is the primary supplier of the IMS core. It’s true that the AT&T service is proprietary; but Hettrick and Taylor say that “we think that every IMS-based solution will require some level of proprietary work as each carrier’s network and back office if different. And one of the benefits of IMS is that it is built to provide a common framework to accommodate diverse legacy and future network requirements.”

Hettrick and Taylor say that AT&T’s history shows that the company works to avoid such lawsuits.

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