AT&T copies Google, names 100 cities where it could offer gigabit fiber

Don’t celebrate yet—AT&T is making no promises to build anywhere.

Jon Brodkin – Apr 21, 2014 2:35 pm | 111

Credit: AT&T

Two months after Google announced that it will try to bring fiber Internet to 34 cities in nine metro areas, AT&T today said it will “expand its ultra-fast fiber network to up to 100 candidate cities and municipalities nationwide, including 21 new major metropolitan areas.”

Before anyone gets too excited, AT&T isn’t promising that it will actually build in any or all of these cities. “This expanded fiber build is not expected to impact AT&T’s capital investment plans for 2014,” the company’s announcement said, possibly to assure investors that it isn’t wasting money.

But AT&T will consider building in the cities that provide the best options."AT&T will work with local leaders in these markets to discuss ways to bring the service to their communities,” the company said. “Similar to previously announced metro area selections in Austin and Dallas and advanced discussions in Raleigh-Durham and Winston-Salem, communities that have suitable network facilities and show the strongest investment cases based on anticipated demand and the most receptive policies will influence these future selections and coverage maps within selected areas.”

The metro areas being targeted by AT&T are Atlanta, Augusta, Charlotte, Chicago, Cleveland, Fort Worth, Fort Lauderdale, Greensboro, Houston, Jacksonville, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville, Oakland, Orlando, San Antonio, San Diego, St. Louis, San Francisco, and San Jose. AT&T includes surrounding municipalities to bring the total up to 100.

AT&T’s statements are similar to Google’s, which asked communities to provide expedited permitting and easy access to utility poles and other infrastructure. When Google made its 34-city announcement, it said, “We want to bring Fiber to all of these cities and would be prepared to build in each of them.”

Google Fiber is so far only offered in Kansas City and Provo, Utah. But a Google announcement that the company would build in Austin, Texas was followed by AT&T bringing its GigaPower fiber service to that city, just as AT&T’s 100-city announcement today is reminiscent of Google’s multi-city announcement.

While AT&T seems to be following Google’s lead, Karl Bode of DSLReports calls AT&T’s moves more “fiber to the press release” than fiber to the home.

“What AT&T would have the press and public believe is that they’re engaged in a massive new deployment of fiber to the home service,” Bode wrote. “What’s actually happening is that AT&T is upgrading a few high-end developments where fiber was already in the ground (these users were previously capped at DSL speeds) and pretending it’s a serious expansion of fixed-line broadband.”

AT&T said today that it “continues to expect that its wired IP broadband network will reach 57 million customer locations in its 22-state wireline footprint by the end of 2015.” That’s not a new plan, though: it was announced in 2012 and includes both fiber and IP-DSLAM, a type of DSL that offers speeds up to 45Mbps. AT&T has 16.4 million broadband subscribers nationwide.

AT&T’s GigaPower was first made “available to tens of thousands of households in Austin and surrounding communities in December 2013,” and that number will double this year, the company said. Austin has 325,000 households.

GigaPower Internet-only service costs $70 and has speeds of 300Mbps, which is supposed to be upgraded to 1Gbps this year. TV and voice packages bring the price up to $120 or $150 a month.

AT&T is in talks with North Carolina officials “to bring U-verse with GigaPower to parts of Carrboro, Cary, Chapel Hill, Durham, Winston-Salem, and Raleigh.” That plan requires ratification by the six city councils.