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from: Ann Arbor News

New Service Lacks the CTN Channels

February 20, 2008
By Tom Gantert

Ann Arbor residents who choose AT&T U-verse — an Internet-based alternative to Comcast’s cable TV — won’t find Ann Arbor’s community-access channels on the service.

Ann Arbor’s Community Television Network hasn’t connected with AT&T’s signal because the city has a problem with how the communications company is presenting public, educational, government — or PEG — access channels.

AT&T’s service lets subscribers turn to a channel where they can reach a menu of all available public-access channels. From that list, subscribers select their city. Then the channels load. Ann Arbor’s CTN offers four channels.

So far, AT&T is only carrying one community-access channel, one that originates in Clinton Township.

Linda Badamo, director of Clinton Township’s cable TV division, said local officials aren’t satisfied with the way AT&T is handling PEG channels, but are working with the company to come to a compromise.

Badamo said the problem is that it can take as long as 20 to 90 seconds for a channel to load once selected. “I don’t think people are going to wait,” she said.