AT&T Knocked for 'Inferior' PEG Channels

AT&T KNOCKED FOR 'INFERIOR' PEG CHANNELS
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: Todd Spangler]
The Internet-based technology AT&T touts as giving it an edge over the cable industry was criticized this week by the Alliance for Community Media as providing an “inferior” platform for public, educational and government channels. The ACM, which represents some 3,000 PEG organizations, singled out AT&T’s U-verse TV PEG access as “sub-par, low resolution [and] cumbersome” in testimony before a Jan. 29 meeting of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet. “PEG channels are confined to a separate system inferior to commercial channels on AT&T’s system in virtually every way that matters to a viewer,” said Annie Folger, executive director of the Palo Alto, Calif.-based Midpeninsula Media Center, representing the ACM. Among the deficiencies Folger cited: AT&T’s PEG channels do not allow closed-captioning; the telco’s own digital video recorders cannot record the PEG channels; video resolution is as much as 25% lower than commercial channels; and the channels take anywhere from 45 to 90 seconds to load.
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