AT&T promises mobile TV "as early as possible" in 2008

So we know that AT&T slipped its MediaFLO-based mobile TV launch from the end of 2007 out to early '08, but just how "early" are we talking? Well, "as early as possible," to be specific. That rather unhelpful statement is all that's coming out of AT&T for the moment regarding its go-live window for the service, saying that testing is going "very, very well" but that it wanted to take an extra timeout to "make sure the user experience is absolutely optimal." As far as we're concerned, those statements are in conflict with one another -- if they'd planned to launch in '07 and everything's going well, what the heck's the hold up? At any rate, when it does launch, it turns out that we'll be getting essentially the same lineup MediaFLO offers through Verizon's VCAST TV presently, featuring channels from Fox, NBC, ESPN, CBS, and MTV. That rubs us the wrong way considering that AT&T's original press release mentioned its intention to take advantage of advanced MediaFLO capabilities like datacasting and music, so to summarize: less functionality, later than originally expected. Everyone cool?

[Via mocoNews]