AT&T Limits Digital Life Multidwelling Unit Offerings to First Five Floors of Buildings

Despite the system's flexibility, Digital Life will only be available to residents who live on the fifth floor and below in condos or apartments, said the website, to ensure “customers to have a great experience with this service.” Petersen attributed the restriction to wireless coverage that varies from building to building. The service works via both wireless and broadband connections so “at the moment, we will continue to evolve the service and offer the service in a broader way, but at the moment we do ask that it’s the first several stories of the home just to ensure that we give a superior service,” he said.

Petersen didn't say what would happen if someone who lived above the fifth floor wanted to buy Digital Life. “When we get to an MDU,” he said of AT&T installers, “we give guidance to the first five floors but we test the wireless coverage first before we install the service.” In one building the signal might work well on a higher floor and another it may not, he said. “As long as we know you have good solid wireless coverage, we will provide service,” he said. Petersen said there are no restrictions on building materials such as stucco walls that could interfere with wireless transmission. He called the five-floor rule "guidance" and said "our wireless experience is very good.”

Two years into Digital Life, AT&T has learned that experience is the key to growing the smart home market, said Petersen: “It’s about education and raising awareness and getting people to understand the benefits.” The most popular application is security monitoring, he said, with outdoor camera monitoring among Digital Life’s top-selling products, followed by door locks and garage door openers. The company has no plans for packages tailored to MDU living, Petersen said.

Digital Life has opened the platform to third-party companies, including Nest, Lutron and Samsung. The Digital Life platform is open but “managed,” said Petersen, meaning Digital Life can broaden its offering through application programming interfaces from approved third parties, whether through the cloud or via direct connection. “It allows us to leverage innovation in the market,” said Petersen. As new products and platform capabilities emerge, "we’re able to bring those into our platform and provide them as part of our solution.” That allows Digital Life to continue to provide choice, he said.

Third-party companies have to meet technology and support requirements, said Petersen. “We run through a series of tests," he said, including how a product works on its own and then "how it operates once it’s integrated.” The company measures a partner’s support capability based on how it maintains its current customer base and its ability to scale in the future, he said. “Our expectation is that any partner that we bring in will operate in a way that’s commensurate with the level of service we expect for our customers,” he said. “We are making the promise,” he said, “because we are providing the service ultimately, and we will get the call.”

Looking ahead, AT&T is working on voice control for Digital Life but it hasn’t added the capability, said Petersen. “Voice control is going to be increasingly popular,” he said, and AT&T is “bullish” on the concept, viewing voice as a “very legitimate” way to operate a smart home system. The company has trialed voice control in its innovation centers, “and we feel it’s a very viable part of the experience that we will introduce,” said Petersen. He wouldn't provide a timeline.

Customers going to the AT&T Digital Life website Thursday were offered a starting package for $49 that included “$700 worth of equipment.” A two-year security monitoring contract was required at $39 per month with a $640 early termination fee.