An industry public relations professional who happens to be part of AT&T’s U-verse rollout in San Antonio has opened the doors of his home to the world, offering a real-life comparison of IPTV and digital cable.

Alan Weinkrantz, who represents pulver.com and other industry notables, is offering telephone executives from other areas and other countries the opportunity to visit his home and see how U-verse stacks up against Time Warner Cable’s video offering, in a real-world comparison.

One major European telco has already taken the Weinkrantz tour, accompanied by a representative from its vendor, Alcatel.

“The thing about coming to my house – there are dirty dishes,” Weinkrantz said with a laugh. “But when they came, they saw the left side of the house with the cable and the right side of the house with the phone line.”

Weinkrantz wrote about the visit in his SATech Blog – where he has also chronicled his experience with IPTV. Today, he has the AT&T service going into his son, Aaron’s, room, and the Time Warner service, with its High Definition offering, going into the main part of the house, where there is an HD set.

“I’m not sure, but I think I might have the only home in America with both IPTV and cable,” he said.

The idea behind the informal visits, which include a stop at favorite San Antonio hangouts that are off the tourist track, is to give interested parties a consumer eye view of the differences in the services, Weinkrantz said.

“The voice that I’ve taken is that of a consumer -- with a little bit of humor and a little bit of Texan, but done responsibly,” he said.

Visitors shouldn't come to visit Weinkrantz and expect to get a tour of the Alamo, the famous Texas landmark whose appeal has been diminished by its location among larger downtown San Antonio buildings.

"I've been telling people, 'Forget about the Alamo, I'll show you the DSLAM in my neighborhood," he said. "And if they have time, I will also treat them to a very special cultural destination: the Toilet Seat Museum."That attraction can be found in a neighborhood garage, Weinkrantz said. More practically, visitors can view the wiring of the AT&T and the Time Warner set-up, in addition to the programming. Weinkrantz stays in touch with a contact at AT&T, to let them know what is going on. And he recently visited Microsoft’s IPTV lab and 2Wire, the maker of the CPE, to learn more about what they are contributing.

The industry veteran is considering commercial opportunities that could grow out of this, but right now is more interested in offering the first-hand consumer view.

“I think I can develop some proprietary research -- I am looking at a blog as a media property because I can actually speak in English to end users, and there may be publishing and speaking opportunities,” he said. “I’ve wondered if I can turn this into some kind of a brand that speaks for the end-user and do some end-user prospective consulting work. But for now, I have my day job, I run my PR firm and I have my clients to serve and I do see an opportunity to offer something here.”

Related Articles

Cable gains ground while IPTV stalls

San Antonio developer chooses AT&T U-verse

Ensuring IPTV quality