AT&T and Walmart Team up to sell DSL
Now you can pick up kitty litter and broadband at a Walmart near you...

AT&T (T) will start promoting its high-speed Internet service Wednesday in 570 Wal-Mart (WMT) stores across the phone company's 13-state footprint.

The number of stores will expand as AT&T launches DSL service in new markets, says Rick Welday, chief marketing officer.

"Wal-Mart has millions of consumers and potential customers going through their doors on a regular basis," he says.

Welday says the partnership shows AT&T's effort to be "easy to do business with, by being where the people are."

The Wal-Mart deal is the latest partnership for the carrier that now has 4,000 retail outlets for its communications products including voice, wireless, high-speed data and video.

Bumping up sales of DSL is critical for AT&T, whose long-term strategy hinges on selling consumers a fat bundle of services. Cable TV operators have essentially adopted the same strategy, putting pressure on both phone and cable firms to deploy a full range of services quickly.

AT&T recently launched its TV service, called U-verse, in San Antonio. Tuesday, it announced that it has added high-definition capability, as well as some other features, to the U-verse package. Such upgrades are important, because AT&T can't launch the service nationally until it can hold its own against the video packages from the cable TV giants.

Welday says AT&T, for the moment, won't be bundling DSL with other services as part of its Wal-Mart push. But he says that could change after AT&T's pending acquisition of BellSouth closes.

Welday says DSL sales will be handled in Wal-Mart's "Connection Centers," which are in-store boutiques that sell a range of communications and entertainment products. They include in some Wal-Mart stores DSL services from Verizon. (Verizon cut its Wal-Mart deal in June.)

In those markets, AT&T and Verizon both have phone networks, but their phone lines and DSL service areas do not overlap. Thus, they don't compete head-to-head for DSL customers as they do for cellphone subscribers.

Welday says its Wal-Mart partnership will be phased in. For now, brochures in the store will direct potential customers how to sign up by phone or on the Web. Customers will receive their DSL installation kits by mail.

Read all about it here, courtesy of news.yahoo.com.

Eric