AT&T to offer DSL customers cable plan

AT&T Inc. is offering its broadband DSL subscribers a new service where they can watch live cable TV channels on any computer connected to the Internet at home or on the road for an extra $20 per month

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The AT&T Broadband TV service will feature about 20 channels of live and made-for-broadband content. The lineup includes the History Channel, the Weather Channel, the Food Network, Bloomberg, and Oxygen. Channels will be added soon, the company said without elaborating.

The content is being provided by MobiTV Inc., a company that has specialized in delivering live cable channels to cellphones through wireless carriers such as Sprint Nextel Corp. and Cingular Wireless, which is majority owned by AT&T.

As compared with many Internet-based video services, where the viewing window is considerably smaller than most computer monitors, the new AT&T offering will allow users to expand the picture to full screen. The service requires Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Media Player for playback.
Viewers will see whatever commercials are being shown on the live broadcast, but no ads are planned for the browser window and control panel frame.

AT&T Broadband TV will be available to all 7.8 million subscribers of AT&T Yahoo High Speed Internet and AT&T WorldNet, though WorldNet users will not receive the Fox News channel.
While live TV feeds over the Internet are relatively uncommon so far, online downloading of video clips and TV programs has hit the mainstream over the past year.