AT&T Broadband, the entertainment business unit of AT&T, says it will use Liberate Technologies' interactive-television software in set-top boxes for its pilot tests, expected to start later this year.
Liberate's software provides Internet-styled properties to television via a set-top box. In the AT&T trials, the software is planned for a Motorola box. If the trials are successful, the companies expect to distribute the advanced interactive-television services commercially.
Microsoft, an AT&T shareholder, agreed last year to supply the interactive-television software for 7.5 million of AT&T's planned 10 million interactive-TV set-top boxes. But sources said late last month that Microsoft's delay in providing the software could delay AT&T's technical trials of the technology.
Such delays could limit the number of set-top boxes equipped with Microsoft software, the sources said.
