At the CES show today, SBC officially named their next-generation broadband service set to emerge this year: "U-verse". Speaking at the show, SBC CEO Edward Whitacre Jr. said the service will offer hundreds of channels, data speeds between 20-25Mbps, and VoIP services - if you can get it.

Previously only known as "Project Lightspeed", SBC says they'll deliver U-Verse to some 18 million households by the end of 2007 - at a cost of between four to six billion dollars. Like Verizon's Fios, SBC will at first largely target dense affluent neighborhoods.

Unlike Fios, the service isn't fiber straight to the home. It's fiber to the node, then next generation DSL to your door. It's estimated Fios costs Verizon more than $1,200 per home install.

SBC's solution is less expensive ($200-$300 per home), though critics charge they're underestimating the bandwidth they'll need to provide HD content down the road.

To ease that video bandwidth crunch, SBC earlier this week announced an agreement with 2Wire, who will offer SBC users a hybrid Satellite receiver HD-DVR, which will also integrate Yahoo broadband content. That deal appears to be a stop-gap measure, different from the company's plan to offer set-top IPTV U-verse boxes.

This slide taken from an SBC investor update gives some insight into their thought process as it pertains to video services.

While SBC gave U-Verse a name, the company offered no prices, and offered no hints about which areas they'd target first. Users in our forums have noted the company has been engaged in residential trials in Missouri for some time.

"It's easy for our imagination to outpace our ability to deliver," said Whitacre in his CES keynote. "But in 2005, SBC will deliver."