Distimo's Latest App Store Analytics

Sometimes pictures are better than words, and I found that to be the case for Distimo's latest round of numbers on mobile app stores and applications. So rather than write it, here it is in pictures.

Where are the Broadband Apps?

Some people probably just can’t understand why more than 70 percent of Americans are happy with their existing broadband service. The usual explanation for this state of affairs (besides blaming people for being "dumb") is that there are no applications driving consumer demand because broadband is too slow to allow for higher bandwidth applications.

Experience from markets where 10 Mbps to 100 Mbps service is available suggest it is applications that lag, even when bandwidth is not a particular problem. After 10 years, what truly important applications have developed in markets such as South Korea, for example? You might point to gaming or video on demand.

But some of us would argue those are relatively trivial innovations. They don't seem to change a nation's productivity, and neither of those apps are "new" things we hadn't thought of before.

With over 40 million broadband homes since 2008 with more than 6 Mbps of connectivity, one would expect that there would be more applications that require and thrive at 6 Mbps, some would argue. There arguably are new things people do that involve piracy (content), and there might be some premium subscription services that have at least some penetration.

Don't get me wrong; it is entertaining to watch YouTube or Hulu. I'm just not sure that was what we generally had in mind when we have argued that huge pipes would lead to all sorts of interesting and socially or economically useful new developments. New ways to watch television are interesting to lots of people and companies, to be sure.

But was that what you had in mind?

Digital Society � Blog Archive � Reality check – Americans like their broadband service

Apple Wants to Replace, Not Compete, in Search

Apple CEO Steve Jobs says his company will not take on Google in the search business. That's a bit of legalese, one might argue. Apple does not so much want to compete in search as to make it irrelevant in a mobile context.

"Competing" implies one wishes to win something. "Displacing and replacing " is more like what Apple wants to do.

Many of Apple’s 200,000 app downloads, for example, are simply shortcuts to the web which eliminates the need for Google’s search functions.

Apple already competes against Google in the mobile phone, mobile advertising and operating systems areas, and soon there will be competition from Google in the music and mobile apps arenas as well.

Apple Says It Will Not Take On Google In Search, But It Already Has – 24/7 Wall St.

Facebook, Music, Navigation, News Top Smartphone Apps

Though there are some differences by smartphone platform, users tend to use social networking, especially Facebook, listen to music and navigate and search for places on their smartphones most frequently.

(click on the image for a larger view; you might have to click to toggle views onthe new page)

They also seem to use the Weather Channel app frequently, and access news as well.

Kindle Connections Now Go to AT&T

In a business with true scale and scope economies, ownership of a global network can be a key advantage. Consider network support for the Amazon Kindle book readers, which now are sold internationally.

The U.S. version of the Kindle 2 has used the Sprint 3G network. But both international and U.S. versions will henceforth use the AT&T network globally. Existing U.S. Kindle owners will continue to use Sprint, but all new devices will be powered by the AT&T network.

Of course, there are other ebook readers. Barnes & Nobles sells the Nook, Sony sells the Daily Edition and Plastic Logic sells the Que. All of those readers use AT&T's network.

Verizon will provide service for the upcoming iRex e-reader.

The financial impact to Sprint might be a relatively minor issue. Sanford Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett estimates the Kindle will drive one million Kindle users a year to AT&T that Sprint would otherwise have gotten.

Moffett estimates that Sprint makes about $5 for each subscriber addition and $2 per every e-book downloaded onto Kindle over its networks, according to Business Week writer Olga Kharif.

The real issue is whether other upcoming devices and services have enough of a global angle, and enough sales volume, that providers such as Sprint are unable to compete in those new lines of business as well.

25% of Business Apps to be Created by Amateurs, Gartner Says

By 2014, citizen developers will build at least 25 percent of new business applications, according to Gartner analysts. If that is shocking, consider the amount of Web content now freely contributed to Wikipedia or many of your favorite blogs, microblogging sites and YouTube.

Gartner defines a citizen developer as a user operating outside of the scope of enterprise IT and its governance that creates new business applications for consumption by others either from scratch or by composition.

"Future citizen-developed applications will leverage IT investments below the surface, allowing IT to focus on deeper architectural concerns, while end users focus on wiring together services into business processes and workflows," says Eric Knipp, Gartner senior research analyst.

Better technology has also lowered the bar for becoming a developer, while at the same time, users have become less intimidated by technology, empowering citizen developers to do more than they ever could before, Knipp says. Y

"The bottom line lies in encouraging citizen developers to take on application development projects that free IT resources to work on more complex problems," Knipp says.

"Citizen development skills are suited for creating situational and departmental applications like the ones often created in Excel or Access today," he says.

Droid Does?

I'm not so sure the really important thing about the upcoming Motorola "Droid," which will be available on the Verizon network, is whether it is an "Apple iPhone killer."

Certainly Motorola and Verizon hope the device does attract users who otherwise might be attracted to an iPhone. There are clear commercial reasons for both of those firms to hope the device is a wild success.

But I'm not convinced what the world needs is a better iPhone. What it might need is more devices that do different things than the iPhone, that appeal to new user segments and lead applications.

It makes a better headline to focus on the "iPhone versus Droid" angle, but I don't think that's the main thing. Give users something different. Just as important, give users more reasons to do things with a smartphone that really aren't as easy, or preferable, on an iPhone.

Consumers Don't "Want" UC, But they Use It

Unified Communications is one of those buzzword terms people in the communications use, but doesn't necessarily resonate with consumer users. That doesn't mean consumers do not like and use UC, they just don't think about it as "UC."

More often than not, "UC" masquerades as "cool apps" that allow users to manage their communications, voice mail, video services email and other messages. These days, that value is available in the form of mobile apps downloadable from a mobile app store.

That's why users are spending more time checking out apps that actually are forms of UC, even when those apps aren't pitched as being "UC" apps.

Comcast’s mobile application for the iPhone and iPod Touch is an example. The Comcast app  provides one-stop access to key features of Comcast Digital Voice, Digital Cable and high-speed Internet services.

It allows to read and compose emails from Comcast.net, listen to home voice mail from one mailbox, manage landline voicemail through a visual interface, forward home calls to the iPhone, check TV listings, watch on-demand movie trailers, synch all universal address book contacts to the iPhone and add pictures to their favorite contacts.

YouMail, CallWave, PhoneFusion and Google Voice provide other examples. Those apps  allow people to instantly read transcripts of voicemails, screen calls and manage greetings by caller, for example.

Apple’s "MobileMe" service that pushes new email, contacts, web bookmarks, and calendar events over the air to iPhone, Mac, and PC so that data is synchronized.

All of those are examples of how UC looks in the consumer market. People do not seem to care what we call it. They like the higher functionality and use it. But don't ask them whether they "want unified communications." The question won't make sense.

Lots of Changes in Mobile Business

"In our conversations over the past month, we noticed a potential shift in the relationships and economics between wireless carriers and video content providers," says Rajeev Chand, Rutberg & Co. managing director. And that might be the least of the changes of interest to end users.

"For example, several executives noted to us that certain U.S. carriers reduced or decoupled video content bundles from basic or unlimited data plans," he says. "The result has been a short-term reset in the video content provider economics: rather than carriers pay licensing fees for proprietary or bundled content, to assist in subscriber marketing and growth, carriers are paying licensing fees associated with separate video packages which have different consumer buying processes and patterns."

In other words, instead of using video content as a carrot to drive mobile broadband adoption, it is being marketed as a stand-alone application for which addtional fees are required. Oddly enough, at least some mobile operators might be concluding that it doesn't pay to encourage packaged video consumption, at least at lowish prices, especially when the additional load on networks is considered.

“The threat from over-the-top is now and has never been greater,” says Chand. For wireless carriers, the risk is greatest from the incumbent Internet firms, rather than the startup mobile Internet firms, as consumers know the incumbent brands and navigate directly to them.

In that regard, recent movement in the partnership area between Google and Verizon, and Google and Sprint, is interesting.

Though the potential trend will clarify only when a few more moves are made, it appears that AT&T and Verizon are moving in different directions in terms of mobile Web strategy. Sprint, meanwhile, seems to be taking an approach akin to that of Verizon.

The changes could reshape operating system market shares, strategic role of browsers and the ways "open" network platforms can lead to differentiated service experiences.

The potential shift of strategies has been brewing for some time, and perhaps the most-visible sign has been the debate about whether Verizon would embrace the Apple iPhone once AT&T exclusivity ends.

The equally important, but less visible piece of the puzzle is the development relationship Google already has struck up with Sprint Nextel and Clearwire. As part of those efforts, the Android operating system has gotten a boost.

But AT&T might be distancing itself from Google and turning to a range of partners usually more associated with European operators, from Opera to Nokia. That would explain the rather cryptic remarks overheard at the CTIA Wireless I.T. and Entertainment about Symbian "having a resurgence in the U.S. market."

That belief would be hard to explain in the absence of some major push by one of the major U.S. carriers to support Symbian-based devices and applications. Right now, the thinking seems to be that AT&T is considering such a move.

But it would likely be a mistake to characterize the shifts as merely instrumental or confined to market shares for various ecosystem participants.  The more important change is the differentiated end user experiences that would be possible.

Though details are sketchy at the moment, the new Google-Verizon collaboration might lead to a distinctive set of user interfaces, applications and devices optimized for the mobile Web, and for users with different key interests.

In the new scenario, carriers would be able to compete on differentiated experience, not just unique handsets, payment models, package elements or device features.

Though one line of thinking is that "open" networks will lead to service providers becoming "dumb pipes," the new approaches aim to create differentiated and packaged experiences that have service providers acting in a more traditional role.

As Verizon seems to be positioning its Google collaboration, the service provider would create Android devices carrying the operator's brand and software portfolio, though other Android devices with less integration also would be available.

What is intriguing here is the use of third party and open development, in conjunction with carrier packaging, to produce a flourishing of end user options. Instead of commodity-like devices with a a set look, feel and function, one might see devices optimized for particular end user verticals.

3% Consume 40% of Mobile Bandwidth, AT&T Says

The top three percent of smartphone users consume 40 percent of all mobile data bandwidth, says AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets president Ralph de la Vega. Those three percent of users also consume 13 times the data of the average smart phone user, he adds. Another way of quantifying such usage is to note that users who consume 40 percent of AT&T's mobile data bandwidth constitutute just 0.9 percent of all AT&T postpaid mobile subscribers.

The point was clear enough: Without adequate management of network access, most customers will find their experience damaged because of a small number of other users.

There are legitimate public policy concerns about anti-competitive behavior in the wireless and wireline businesses where it comes to gatekeepers of any sort using that power to impair competition. But that is a different and distinct matter from the obvious need to manage shared network resources in ways that actually preserve reasonable access for all other users.

De la Vega used the word "crowd out" to describe such contention, and it is a legitimate issue. Anti-competitive actions certainly are to be protected against. But there are valid network resource managment issues that obviously have to be addressed as well, especially in the wireless domain.

Beyond that, there are valid reasons for wanting competition protected, but without stifling consumer access to new products that offer mass market customers features enterprise users take for granted, such as the ability to prioritize their own use of bandwidth to perserve performance of mission-critical applications. If any consumer end user wants to prioritize their own video, voice or other bits, they ought to be able to do so.

There is nothing anti-competitive about this, so long as any applications in the class can receive such prioritization. Consumer advocates are right to note that issues can arise if voice bits sold by the ISP can be prioritized, but not voice bits sold by other competing service providers.

Some approaches will work better than others, and that is an issue one would hope policymakers take seriously into account as new "neutrality" rules are crafted.

Telemedicine Spending to Approach $3.6 Billion Annually by 2014

Wireless service providers likely will be key beneficiaries of increased spending on tele-medicine services and devices will generate nearly $3.6 billion in annual revenue within the next five years, says Pike & Fischer Senior Analyst Tim Deal.

The need to control health care costs, along with the development and expansion of faster wireless broadband networks, smartphones, and data compression solutions, will drive the market growth, Deal says.

Wireless applications, devices, and services solutions will account for more than 70 percent of the total market spend within five years.

Driving that spending is the economic stimulus law that President Obama signed earlier this year. That initiative includes $20 billion for health information technology, with a specific focus on electronic medical records and telemedicine, Deal says.

"We project that at least 25 percent of the $20 billion in stimulus funds earmarked for health information technology will be applied toward broadband-enabled telemedicine services such as remote patient monitoring and mobile access to medical records, and consumer applications such as interactive fitness guides and mobile health-related videos," says Deal.

AT&T will have the largest presence in this market, followed closely by Verizon and Sprint Nextel, Deal projects.

Internet Users are Unique, Treat Them That Way

As this chart suggests, there are distinct Internet end user segments, some of which only require moderate bandwidth, others which require more bandwidth, better latency performance and more upstream bandwidth, if not symmetrical bandwidth.

The issue for any facilities-based service provider is that the whole network has to be built to accommodate the most advanced users, even if much, or most, of the demand is from less-demanding users.

Still, given that such investment must be made, there is increasing room to personalize and tailor broadband access and applications to individual users who actually behave in unique ways.

Though the concern expressed by many supporters of strong forms of network neutrality rightly is focused on protecting legal applications from anti-competitive behavior, there clearly are other values that conflict with the  proposed solution for discrimination, which is that no bits, from any providers, can be prioritized.

In fact, prioritizing bits represents a primary tool for personalizing end user services and applications so that those favored applications are optimized for each user. Surely there are ways to ensure non-discrimination without precluding the creation of personalized services that benefit from end-user specified preferences.

Is Mobile Broadband a Commodity?

Most industry observers tend to think and behave as though "voice" were a commodity, and there is some truth to the notion, at least on the wholesale, carrier-to-carrier or carrier-to-enterprise level. I would dispute the notion that voice, in all its permutations, actually fits the definition of a commodity, but for the moment let's look at mobile broadband.

Is mobile broadband a commodity? Can it replace a fixed broadband connection. As this chart suggests, the answer largely is "no." A mobile service easily can displace a single consumer voice line or simple Internet applications such as email. But it isn't so clear email access is what people generally mean when thinking about mobile broadband.

At the other extreme, high-quality linear entertainment video is virtually impossible to replicate in the mobile domain, so IPTV, for example, has no direction equivalent in the wireless domain. Other applications are somewhere between "mostly" substitutable and "not" substitutable.

The point is that a product probably isn't a full "commodity" if full substitution is not possible, or is possible, but without fully interchangeable value. So far, mobile broadband does not seem to be a "commodity" fully capable of replacing a fixed broadband line.

There are many reasons, including vastly different speeds, usage caps and pricing. Then there is the demographic element. It is easier to consider substitution when a single-user household is concerned, hardest when multi-member families are concerned.

The value of a fixed broadband connection grows with the degree of bandwidth sharing and total number of devices to be supported. One fixed broadband connection might make more sense than five mobile broadband connections, for example.

The other angle is that linear multi-channel entertainment video is just a discrete application delivered over a fixed broadband connection, and there is as of yet no mobile substitute. So despite outward appearances, mobile and fixed broadband are not fully-exchangeable substitutes, and hence not true commodities.

Video Business Model Disruption Inevitable, But Not Imminent

What will media companies look like in a couple of years? Pretty much what they look like today. But what will they look like in 10 to 15 years? Very different.

There are clear reasons why the couple of years will look an awful lot like this year,  while a decade from now the whole media business could be structured in very different ways.

First, new IP technology and broadband is in place that will drive a long cycle of innovation for challengers and economic destruction for incumbents. That almost assures vast change over a longer time frame. But the emphasis here has to be on "long" cycles.

Changes in the media can take quite a long time to mature. Gordon Crawford, The Capital Group managing director, notes that in 1972 the existing media business was quite attractive, financially. But that changed after 1995, the year of the Netscape initial public offering, which ushered in the age of Internet-based media.

Only now, 14 years later, is the impact starting to really affect the print segment of the business. And most of the video impact has yet to arrive.

Still, Crawford thinks change is inevitable. "If you go out enough years, bandwidth will be there," he says. "Storage will cost nothing and rights issues will be resolved."

"People will have access to whatever they want, whenever they want it, on any device," says Crawford.  "That is where we are going."

But one has to remember that large-scale and fundamental technological changes seem to have less impact when the trends are just beginning, but reach some inflection point, beyond which vast change happens relatively quickly. That should not be too different for the video business.

There will be less change that you expect early on, and greater change later, in other words.

There are some possible outcomes, though. If regulators were, for example, to impose an "a la carte" pricing regime on video providers, 250 of 400 cable channels will disappear overnight," says Crawford.

Peter Chernin, former News Corp. president, also agrees that fundamental change is coming. "Non-consumer-friendly business models cannot be supported anymore," he says.

"The single biggest question facing the industry is the ability of niche cable channels to survive," says Chernin. "About 60 to70 percent of media profits of big conglomerates come from there."

But people only want to watch 10 to 15 channels. "Is that sustainable?" Chernin muses.

And while most people think Hollywood ultimately will change its "release windows," that might not have as much effect on what consumers decide to rent or buy as one might think. But there could be big changes in distribution.

Chernin thinks the days of people buying DVDs are numbered because of streaming. "The DVD business is declining 15 to 20 percent a year," he says. If networks are ubiquitous, can you convince people to own content for $15 when they can stream it for lots less?

Some "70 percent of DVD purchases are for new releases," Chernin notes. Even if the delivery format changes, that is likely to remain the buying pattern.

"It’s just a matter of time" before cable networks are faced with "digital destruction," Chernin says.

There are obvious implications for satellite, cable and telco multi-channel video providers, of course. The good news is that distributors have some time to get ready for the transition. Being "too early" is about as bad for business as "being too late."

Smart phones for Play, More than Work

Though businesses only buy smart phones for their perceived productivity advantages, a new Compete survey sugggests people mostly use their smart phones for entertainment and other personal applications.

That is to say, entertainment, games, music, social networking and weather are the most popular across smart phone platforms.

More than anything else, the Compete survey results illustate the changing value proposition, application focus and business models possible in the wireless space. Communication remains fundamental. Email, microblog posts, instant and text messaging are communication formats, first and foremost.

But mobiles also are becoming entertainment devices. The survey shows that smart phone owners prefer personal and social apps to business applications.

That was not true early on, when a "smart phone" was nearly synonymous with "BlackBerry," and was bought on behalf of business users. While business users remain a key segment of the market, consumer users gradually are becoming the majority of the market.

The survey suggests that iPhone owners, more so than other smartphone users, were more likely to spend money on apps., while 83 percent of all smartphone users preferred apps $5 or below. Whether that is because first movers are different than mainstream users, or because the Apple user experience is so much easier, is hard to determine with precision at this point.

About 73 percent of Blackberry owners have downloaded five or fewer applications; in contrast, 72 percent of iPhone owners have downloaded 10 or more applications. Clearly, iPhone owners have been more receptive to customizing their devices.

Facebook is hot among iPhone owners. About 71 percent of iPhone users report accessing Facebook from their mobile device, and 37 percent listed Facebook as one of their top three most used apps. About 18 percent claim it's their favorite app.

Despite Twitter's ever-increasing mobile popularity, 85 percent of smart phone owners still prefer to access the site from the computer.

While 26 percent of iPhone users tweet from their device, only 15 percent of Palm owners and 10 percent of Blackberry users report accessing Twitter on the go.

Of the smart phone owners who do access Twitter via their phones, 41 percent use the application to keep track of what their friends are doing, 32 percent use the service to keep up with current events and 19 percent tweet from their handset to build a fan base or promote their company.

Facebook is the most heavily trafficked social networking site among smartphone owners, says the report, and iPhone users are twice as likely to use the mobile Facebook app as their Palm counterparts. In fact, iPhone owners are the most active mobile social networkers, with the highest percentage of respondents reporting mobile use of Facebook, MySpace and Twitter and from their mobile devices.

Twitter Usage Remains a Bit Mysterious

Sometimes numbers can be deceiving. Hitwise data, for example, suggests that Twitter traffic hit a peak in April, and then dropped, peaking again in July before dropping to levels below that of the April peak. In other words, traffic has dropped since April.

But one has to make adjustments. A majority of Twitter users use a third-party client to access Twitter. In fact, only about 20 to 30 percent of people go through the Twitter Web site. So the direct Twitter data does not show the full impact of Twitter usage.

The Hitwise data also suggests the same effect, showing the number of new users--new, not total--coming to Twitter from its top traffic sources, such as Facebook, Google, and MySpace, also has fallen consistently across the board from April to September 2009.

But those statistics only point to a slowing rate of growth, and that always happens to any application or service which starts from a low base, no matter how popular.

The Twitter Web site does attract about 54 million visitors a month, and that does not count the 70 to 80 percent of users who use the application from a third party portal of some sort.

A slowing rate of growth likely is nothing to worry about. Other studies have shown a high abandonment rate for new users, though.

In March 2009, for example, more than 60 percent of Twitter users fail to return the following month, says David Martin, Nielsen Online VP.

That means Twitter’s audience retention rate, the percentage of a given month’s users who come back the following month, is about 40 percent.

To put that in perspective, it is roughly the equivalent of turning over 100 percent of the user base every three months. Such a churn rate is unsustainable. One suspects the churn rate also will drop over time. People either like it, or they don't. But whether they like it or not, even resisters will use the app if their friends, family and associates do. Ultimately, that is going to make a difference.

Back to the Future for Internet Apps?

Time spent on social network and blogging sites accounted for 17 percent of all time spent on the Internet in August 2009, nearly triple the percentage of time spent in 2008, says The Nielsen Company.

“This growth suggests a wholesale change in the way the Internet is used,” said Jon Gibs, vice president, media and agency insights, Nielsen’s online division. “While video and text content remain central to the Web experience, the desire of online consumers to connect, communicate and share is increasingly driving the medium’s growth.”

In some ways that is a "back to the future" move, as it was email that drove the dial-up Internet access business. After waves of growth driven by online commerce and then entertainment, it appears communication might again be moving to the forefront.

Net Neutrality: Do You Want Random or Planned Blocking?

Strong forms of "network neutrality" that allow no prioritizing of Internet traffic pose clear issues for real-time services such as video and voice, at times of peak load. Since all real-time services are highly susceptible to congestion, peak hours may not be optimal times to use them. The problem is that "peak hours" are when users most want those services available.

So the issue is simply whether users prefer random disruptions of quality, or planned disruptions of the quality of some applications, in order to provider optimal performance for real-time services. Since no federal rules are going to abolish peak consumption hours, the only practical issue is what methods are used to limit network access at times of peak congestion.

One can specify that no packets are blocked or intentionally slowed. But that only shifts the congestion control mechanism. Users will find their voice and video sessions don't work that well, and will restrict their use of those services at times of peak congestion.

The other approach is to prioritize applications so the burden of congestion is shifted to lower-priority communications or applications; to users with demonstated "very-high usage" profiles; users who already have exceeded fair usage caps or users at congested cell towers.

Some service quality degradation, at peak hours, will happen. The only issue is how the congestion issues are distirbuted.

One might argue that congestion effects also could be distributed based on whether users have opted to buy "best effort" usage plans or "assured access" plans. But higher-quality, assured access is not possible when packets cannot be prioritized.

Congestion issues, despite network upgrades, always will be a fact of life for networks. The only practical issue is how network degradation is handled. It can be random, or it can be planned. How any new network neutrality rules are framed will determine whether planned mechanisms are allowable.

Good News, Bad News for Mobile Video

The good news for mobile service providers: according to data from Mediamark Research & Intelligence, more than one-fifth of US mobile phone or PDA users are interested in watching live TV on their mobile device.

The bad news: Only 13.5 percent of all respondents said they would pay a subscription fee for mobile TV, and even among respondents who said mobile was a source of entertainment, the figure was just 34.5 percent.

The best news: people once scoffed at the very notion of consumers paying for TV, but that belief has been proven dramatically wrong. Most U.S. consumers get their TV from a satellite, cable or telco video provider.

The challenge: differentiated programming not available on broadcast networks was what drove the interest. Simply making existing content available on mobile networks might not move the needle much.

The current thinking by distributors is that making mobile video a feature available to fixed line video services is one way to drive business value from mobile video. That is helpful to an extent, but doesn't address the more fundamental problem, which is that video will put an order of magnitude or two greater strain on mobile networks, largely without benefit of revenue lift to compensate for the required network investment.

If a business--any business--faces a magnitude or two of incremental cost, it stands to reason that those costs simply must be covered, one way or the other. If advertising is insufficient--and it clearly will be--then paid viewing or higher direct bandwidth charges are the most-likely revenue generators.

AT&T Launches Entertainment Portal

AT&T is getting into the online content business with the launch of its new website AT&T Entertainment. TheWeb site allows users to watch thousands of streaming TV shows and movies on their PCs. The online content, provided by numerous content providers including ABC and NBC Universal, CBS Interactive and dozens more, is available to all consumers at www.entertainment.att.net.

By delivering video entertainment to your PC, the new site is part of AT&T’s strategy to make popular content available to consumers across the three screens at the center of their lives — the TV, PC and wireless phone. AT&T plans to add more TV programs and movies from other leading providers in the coming months.

At AT&T Entertainment, fans can view thousands of TV shows after their initial network airing and movies from a variety of networks and studios, including ABC, Bravo, CBS Entertainment, CBS News, CNBC, NBC, Oxygen, Syfy, The CW, USA Network and more. Consumers can easily find content by browsing TV shows and movies alphabetically, by genre, or by network or studio. The site is open to any user; you do not have to be an AT&T customer to enjoy watching shows on the site.

AT&T "U-verse" TV and Internet customers who visit AT&T Entertainment can sign in to access U-verse "Web Remote Access," a popular application that allows customers to schedule and manage DVR recordings directly from their PC. U-verse Web Remote Access has been available through the att.net portal since 2006.