Jan. 8 (Bloomberg) -- AT&T Inc., the biggest phone company in the U.S., will upgrade its high-definition television service so customers can connect more than one set at a time.

Buyers of the company's U-verse service will be able to watch television on two sets, and possibly three, by the end of the year, said Jeff Weber, vice president of video products. AT&T's network will have enough capacity, he said.

``We have plenty of speed to do that,'' Weber said in an interview yesterday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. ``We will absolutely do that in 2008.''

AT&T began selling television service in 2006, and plans to cover more than 1 million homes by the end of this year. The San Antonio-based company has budgeted $7 billion over five years to compete with cable companies such as Comcast Corp., which offers packages of TV, phone and Internet access.

This year, AT&T will also start selling Internet-based home phone service, Weber said. The company said in June that the service would be available in 2007.

Weber also said efforts by cable companies to buy wireless time from Sprint Nextel Corp. and resell it to their customers are ``tough'' to make work.

Sprint, the third-biggest U.S. mobile-phone company, has stopped expanding retail sales for its Pivot joint venture with Comcast, Time Warner Cable Inc., Cox Communications Inc. and Advance/Newhouse Communications. The product, linking wireless, Internet and TV service, was too difficult to set up for customers, Sprint Chief Financial Officer Paul Saleh said in November.

``I understand why they're doing it, and I think they need to do it, but at the end of the day they won't be able to integrate'' as well as AT&T, Weber said.

AT&T fell $2.27 to $39.16 at 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The drop was the largest since March 2003, after Chief Executive Officer Randall Stephenson today said slowing economic growth led to ``softness'' in the home phone and Internet businesses.

To contact the reporter on this story: Amy Thomson in Las Vegas at athomson6@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: January 8, 2008 16:23 EST