AT&T looks to be one of the first American television operators to enter the online distribution race. “AT&T Entertainment,” a streaming TV and movie portal, is live.

The site’s layout resembles Hulu, the online video service that features TV shows, movies and clips from nearly 190 leading content companies. Mashable state the TV portal is more similar to Comcast’s Fancast or AOL’s new SlashControl.

AT&T Entertainment content can be browsed by title, creator, and network/studio.

So far, AT&T doesn’t appear to host any videos on its own, but is instead streaming from Hulu, CBS, MTV, etc. There don’t seem to be any ads beyond the ones included from the content hosts.

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Netflix is a movie rental company first and foremost but it’s also developing a very strong online video streaming strategy, with its Watch Instantly video-on-demand a huge hit. It has now added ABC shows to its line-up and could soon be available as an iPhone app.

Netflix Watch Instantly

Netflix’s business is built on delivering rented movies to people’s doors and charging them a monthly fee for doing so. And it’s a pretty damn successful business. However, Netflix knows that the days of physical media are coming to an end, with streaming music and video, as well as software and games delivered via the Internet becoming standard.

Therefore, it offers its subscribers the chance to stream video via its ‘Watch Instantly’ service. Those paying the monthly fees required to rent DVDs get access to over 12,000 movies and episodes of popular television series. Not just available on a computer, Netflix’s ‘Watch Instantly’ has been added to a number of devices, from set-top-boxes to the Xbox 360.

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What should have been a fine moment for iPhone owners everywhere turned into a moment of frustration, anger and despair. The reason? SlingPlayer Mobile finally comes to the iPhone – unfortunately, AT&T decided to cripple the app by making it Wi-Fi-only. So you can forget your 3G.

SlingPlayer On iPhone

A lot of people have been waiting a long time for the SlingPlayer Mobile app to come to the iPhone. It’s been available for BlackBerry, Symbian, Windows Smartphone and Pocket PC, and Palm OS amongst others for some time but due to Apple’s vice-like grip over what makes it onto the iTunes App Store, the wait has been long and painful.

At the end of March, Sling Media announced that it had submitted SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone to the iTunes App Store. It made it on there on Wednesday (May 13) but was lumbered with a disability which makes it an altogether less attractive option.

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The battle for blocking copyrighted materials from being distributed around the web could be about to get even murkier.

It was reported yesterday on Business Week that AT&T is considering starting to use a network filtering technology called Vobile. 

At first AT&T would use the technology to filter out content like child pornography, but be assured that its ultimate goal is to use it to filter videos and other content that allegedly infringe on major copyright holders’ copyrights. 

If you recall, AT&T announced in June that it would work with the content industry to develop a copyright filter. Public Knowledge roundly criticized that announcement, and have generally been critical of calls for ISPs to filter their networks.

AT&T have stated on a number of different occasions that it won’t block, degrade or censor websites.

This argument has prevented legislation and regulation that would see telecom companies such as them be made to play fair with content providers.

Not to get too technical here, but they didn’t promise not to censor, did they? Let’s add that little crime against speech to the list of reasons why Internet Freedom/Net Neutrality is a good idea.

It seems as if AT&T was the sponsor of the Webcast of a Pearl Jam concert at Lollapalooza on Saturday night (Aug. 4). Soon after the performance ended, the band started getting word from its fans that part of a song had been cut out. 

In a statement which has chilled the blood of many U.S. IPTV operators, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has just asked the state’s Department of Public Utility Control (DPUC) to require that AT&T obtain a cable TV license for its IPTV offering.

Connecticut AG Blumenthal stated “this (AT&T U-Verse IPTV) service must be licensed as cable, regulated as cable.”

In light of a July 27 ruling by Federal Judge Janet Bond Arterton that AT&T’s U-Verse IPTV service is a cable television service, the DPUC has the ability to stop AT&T’s infrastructure improvements and construction, as well as its marketing activities for enrolling new customers until it complies with the onerous licensing requirement.

AT&T has announced that a further 38,000 new subscribers signed up to its U-verse service in the second quarter of 2007, bringing the total to 51,000.

U-verse offers IPTV, Internet access and will eventually offer VoIP to consumers across America, although the service is currently limited to just 23 metropolitan areas of the US including San Francisco, California and Dallas, Texas.

“AT&T has a strong foundation for growth in wireless and IP-based services, and in the second quarter we improved our trajectory in key areas,” said Randall Stephenson, Chairman and CEO of AT&T. “Our U-verse video service has begun to ramp aggressively.”

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