Your TV now interrupts your regularly scheduled broadcast with a news flash: who's calling you on the phone.
AT&T is introducing a caller ID feature for its U-verse service, a competitor to cable television. When a call comes in, the feature pops a msg on the TV screen, showing viewers who's calling and the caller's phone number.
The feature was activated today for U-verse customers in Raleigh and Chapel Hill. U-verse customers in Charlotte got the caller ID feature last month.
It's a small example of a massive transformation in telecommunications that will one day lead to a complete convergence of computer, television and telephone services, so that people will be able to use all three devices interchangeably to browse the Web, watch programs and communicate.
AT&T's rival, Time Warner Cable, has been offering the caller ID feature since April 2008 on its Digital Phone service. Time Warner is next planning to extend the caller ID feature to its Internet service, so that when a customer's phone rings the customer will receive a message on the computer.
Both AT&T's and Time Warner's caller ID features are free and available only to customers who bundle TV and phone service from the same provider.
John Murawski has been a full-time newspaper reporter since 1991, with stints at Legal Times and The Chronicle of Philanthropy (both in Washington, DC), The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Palm Beach Post (in South Florida) before arriving at the N&O in December 2004. At the N&O he covers energy (nuclear, coal, renewable, efficiency), hydralic fracturing (or "fracking"), public utilities (both electric and natural gas) and health care. His beat includes Progress Energy, PSNC Energy, Piedmont Natural Gas, PowerSecure International, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer, Biogen Idec and others. You can reach him at 919-829-8932 or
Comments
Where is UVERSE in Raleigh
Sat, 03/27/2010 - 11:11 — SeaOwlAt least 20 people in Raleigh must have UVERSE by now.
This has to be the slowest product roll out in history. I think they made their big arrival announcement near the end of 2008.
Does ATT have any kind of timetable for getting to older homes near Duraleigh & Glenwood?
I'm in northeast Raleigh and
Sun, 04/04/2010 - 23:47 — scot30I'm in northeast Raleigh and have had U-verse for over a year now. I love it, and very glad I made the switch. You can go to the U-verse web site to see if it's available to you, and if it's not you can sign up to be contacted when it is available.