Getting your player ready...
Washington – AT&T Inc., the largest U.S. telephone company, will choose by the end of this year whether to keep EchoStar Communications Corp. or DirecTV Group Inc. as its satellite-television provider.
The company sells Echo Star’s Dish Network service in 13 states and offers DirecTV’s plans in the nine states served by BellSouth Corp., which AT&T acquired last year.
AT&T will select one of the satellite providers before their contracts expire in early 2008, chief financial officer Rick Lindner said Wednesday to investors.
AT&T packages satellite-TV plans with phone service and Internet access to compete with cable TV companies such as Comcast Corp., which are expanding into the phone business.
