AT&T's rebranded megastore

AT&T's first rebranded Experience store opened yesterday in Houston, Texas with 5,000-square-feet of space aimed at making the experience of buying a mobile phone more fun. The store is the first of 11 AT&T Experience stores planned for opening this year. Other locations have yet to be announced. 

The store will allow shoppers to demo phones and other services, including demonstrations of: HD programming and the company's VOD catalog, how to customize Web pages and use remote monitoring, how to listen to XM Satellite Radio [1] on wireless phones, Bluetooth [2] headphones and (soon) Apple's new iPhone [3].

The Experience store has been most associated with Apple in recent years, but AT&T rival, Verizon Communications, has already launched a couple Verizon Experience stores of its own. The first one opened its doors in October in Southlake, Texas. Radio Shack and Carphone Warehouse also announced plans to open mobile focused stores late last year. [4]

For more on AT&T's new megastore:
- see this article [5] from the NYTimes