AT&T expected to roll out gigabit Internet in SA

Telecom behemoth AT&T, based in Dallas, will likely announce on Monday that it’s going to deploy its “Gigapower” Internet in San Antonio. Telecom behemoth AT&T, based in Dallas, will likely announce on Monday that it’s going to deploy its “Gigapower” Internet in San Antonio. Photo: Steven Senne, Associated Press Photo: Steven Senne, Associated Press Image 1 of / 24 Caption Close AT&T expected to roll out gigabit Internet in SA 1 / 24 Back to Gallery

Telecom behemoth AT&T, based in Dallas, will likely announce on Monday that it’s going to deploy its “GigaPower” Internet in San Antonio, rivaling last month’s announcement that Google would do the same with its gigabit Fiber network.

It’s possible that the AT&T service will be running in some neighborhoods before Google deploys its Fiber network, according to a source with knowledge of the plan who isn’t authorized to speak about it.

“For AT&T, because they already have neighborhoods in San Antonio that have fiber to the home, they’ll be able to light that up and provide service before anyone else,” the source said.

Google Fiber announced in early August that San Antonio would become one of its “Fiber cities.”

AT&T did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The mayor’s office declined to comment on the matter.

The telecom company sent a press release late Thursday to the San Antonio Express-News saying a major announcement was coming Monday about a “new technology advancement that benefits consumers and small businesses.”

According to its website, AT&T already offers its GigaPower in 15 cities, half of which are on Google Fiber maps. In Texas, GigaPower through AT&T’s U-Verse has been deployed already in Austin, which also has Google Fiber, Dallas, Fort Worth and Houston.

Deployment could happen more rapidly in San Antonio for AT&T than for Google, which is poised to soon begin laying some 4,000 miles of fiber-optic infrastructure. But the legacy telecom company already has a fiber network, at least in parts of San Antonio, a source told the newspaper. That means AT&T will need to replace hardware within the network, including in customers’ homes, to ramp up speeds to gigabit service. But the company isn’t facing construction from the ground up.

For more about this story, visit www.expressnews.com or read the Saturday edition of the San Antonio Express-News.

jbaugh@express-news.net

Twitter: @jbaugh