No surprises here, but AT&T is doing the right thing by getting official with its Total Home DVR -- which we've been expecting for like, ever. A number of loyal U-verse users received word of the change last week, but now the provider is rolling the software out to the Bay Area at no additional charge; as for everyone else, expect to receive it before 2009 dawns. So, what's so fresh about Total Home? Oh, just the ability to watch five HD programs simultaneously throughout the home, among other nice extras listed in bulleted fashion after the jump.

You want to know -- nay, you deserve to know -- which service provides the most HD content. Engadget HD's got the answer, see how your HD provider stacks up.

AT&T, continuing to be the open, giving, and free-wheeling loony that it is, has decided to bestow cost-free access to its 10,000+ WiFi hotspots (for its broadband subscribers, that is). Effective immediately, if you're tossing money the company's way for any high-speed access, you can hop onto wireless networks in retail shops, restaurants, and airports free of charge... provided they're AT&T networks. We know its a lot to handle, but get this -- the telco has also upped the speeds of its U-verse service to a whopping 10 Mbps downstream / 1.5 Mbps upstream configuration, undoubtedly warming the hearts of AT&T subscribers hankering for a little more bandwidth to sustain their ever-increasing 'net needs. It's like the holidays all over again.

Read - AT&T To Deliver Free Access To Nation's Largest Wi-Fi Network
Read - AT&T Boosts Bandwidth Choices and Speed with 10 Mbps Offer for U-verse Customers

U-verse users, meet HDTV. We just got word that AT&T's IPTV service is going to be blessed with numerous upgrades within the next few weeks that will include HDTV support, more channels, more VOD, games, personal photos and other unannounced features. This rollout seems to be within the same speculated time frame of October 25th to coincide with the launch of those brand spanking new Motorola DVR's; whenever it does happen, though, these features will be implemented during the slow viewing times between 11 PM and 5 AM with the hope of minimizing service interruption. On a similar note, AT&T is upgrading DVRs to prep for this rollout, with customers seeing all previously recorded programs erased and all scheduled recordings canceled after October 5th. But keep in mind this is for high-def along with more content, so hopefully the ends will justify the means -- you can deal with a few Adult Swim-free nights for the greater good, right?

U-verse users, your time is drawing near to shed your older, simpler fiber-powered box for a hot-off-the-assembly-line Motorola unit. Make no mistake about it, nearly any U-verse box one picks up at this point is going to be an early product operating on a relatively infant technology, but you can't argue with IPTV recorded in HD (or standard def) to a 160GB hard drive in h.264. According to UverseUsers, the Moto VIP 1216 box should be rolled out to AT&T customers October 25th, with VIP 1200 "client" boxes for whole-home DVR to follow. Just watch out for what happens when Mr. or Mrs. High Definition Watcher clogs up all the bandwidth in the house watching the game in super high quality; let's hope for the sake of optimizing that very finite data pipe that the h.264 is extended to transmission from the head-end as well.

[Via HD Beat]