AT&T, hoping to drive up fourth-quarter subscriber numbers, extended marketing agreements with Wal-Mart Stores and Circuit City under which the retailers will sell its U-verse TV and high-speed Internet services in more than 600 retail locations starting this month.
Through the deals – AT&T’s first marketing agreements with national retailers for U-verse – the two retailers will offer the phone company’s TV and broadband services at stores located near neighborhoods where U-verse services are available, in 13 states: Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas and Wisconsin.
Wal-Mart and Circuit City will give floor space to in-store kiosks to provide demos of the services. Both retailers already offer AT&T phone and broadband services at the locations that will be pushing U-verse.
AT&T is trying to hit its target of signing up at least 1 million U-verse TV customers by the end of 2008. The telco plans to pass more than 30 million living units with the fiber-to-the-node network by the end of 2010.
