AT&T Still Massively Padding "Gigapower" Investment Claims In the last few months, AT&T has gone around the country promising "up to" 100 markets that they will soon have access to AT&T’s 1 Gbps service called GigaPower. But as this site has noted repeatedly, AT&T is and has been making significant cuts to their fixed-line network investment budget. They just weren’t telling that to the public while admitting to as much to investors.

Essentially, AT&T is continuing to use network investment as a carrot on a stick with regulators by promising to withhold or accelerate network infrastructure investment only if government does their bidding. They've been doing it again lately to get their DirecTV acquisition approved. Now, AT&T is admitting more openly that they will be cutting their capital expenditure budget by 15% yet somehow will reach their “GigaPower rollout goals.” According to Lori Lee, EVP of Home Solutions for AT&T, their company’s GigaPower plans are “on track” to reach “up to 100 cities, including 21 new major metropolitan areas.” Again, AT&T has no plans to install fiber to over 100 cities for the foreseeable future if ever. This is more "fiber to the press release" talk where a carrier makes a lot of marketing noise about deploying 1 Gbps, but in reality is making the minimal effort to appear competitive, only offering those speeds to a handful of college campuses and high-end development communities. These deployments are so limited, the companies tell investors the upgrades won't actually cost them much of anything. This means that the vast majority of AT&T customers will never see these upgrades even if they live in cities that supposedly have this GigaPower service. In fact if anything AT&T's actually reducing it's traditional broadband footprint as it looks to back away from DSL customers they refuse to upgrade via something it has convinced regulators should be gloriously defined as the "IP transition." While AT&T holds the public's attention with "Gigapower" upgrades, the company's "IP transition" stands to effectively pull DSL lines out from under the feet of tens of millions of active users, who'll then be forced to either expensive, heavily-capped LTE lines -- or cable competitors suddenly emboldened by less competition than ever before. The fight over potentially purging the country of ISP-written, protectionist state-level laws is also as important as offering 1 Gbps ever was. Let’s remember that AT&T is the same company who threatened to freeze all of their fiber investments “up to” 100 cities if Title II classification was passed. Then, when the FCC asked them to provide information of this phantom freeze, AT&T Let’s remember that AT&T is the same company who threatened to freeze all of their fiber investments “up to” 100 cities if Title II classification was passed. Then, when the FCC asked them to provide information of this phantom freeze, AT&T played stupid and acted as if they had never said anything.







News Jump California Defends Its Net Neutrality Law; AT&T's Traffic Up 20% Despite Data Traffic Actually Being Down; + more news Are The Comcast-Charter X1 Talks Dead In The Water?; AT&T May Offer Phone Plans With Ads For Discounts; + more news Europe's Top Court: Net Neutrality Rules Bar Zero Rating; ViacomCBS To Rebrand CBS All Access As Paramount+; + more news Verizon To Buy Reseller TracFone For $7B; 5G Not The Competitive Threat To Cable Many Thought It Would Be; + more news MS.Wants Records From AT&T On $300M Project; Google Fiber Outages In Austin, Houston, Other Texan Cities; + more news States With The Biggest Decreases In Speed; AT&T Hopes You'll Forget Its Fight Against Accurate Maps; + more news AT&T's CEO Has A Familiar $olution To US Broadband Woes; EarthLink Files Suit Against Charter; + more news 5G Doesn't Live Up To Hype, AT&T's 5G Slower Than Its 4G; Cord-Cutting Now In 37% of Broadband Households; + more news FCC Cited False Broadband Data Despite Warnings; ZTE, Huawei Replacement Cost Is $1.87B, But Only $1B Allocated; + more Cogeco Rejects Altice USA's Atlantic Broadband Bid; AT&T Is Astroturfing The FCC In Support Of Trump Attack; + more news ---------------------- this week last week most discussed view:

topics flat nest

Rob

Premium Member

join:2001-08-25

Miami, FL 1 recommendation Rob Premium Member 20 Year Repeat.. I feel like this is a repeat from 20 years ago when Ma Bell promised so much, and delivered so little. gaforces (banned)

United We Stand, Divided We Fall

join:2002-04-07

Santa Cruz, CA 2 edits gaforces (banned) Member Re: 20 Year Repeat.. They are still milking the copper here. DSL 1mb available > 30 years later > Uverse IPDSLAM 3mb available.

There is definitely a lack of intelligence letting this go on so long.

raIDER

@sbcglobal.net raIDER Anon Re: 20 Year Repeat.. I see your in Santa Cruz don't worry Fiber is coming our way and it's not from ATT.... kaila

join:2000-10-11

Lincolnshire, IL kaila to Rob

Member to Rob

Like project 'pronto' circa 1999, or 'lightspeed' in 2004, both of which came with a promise to deliver DSL to my community yet never happened.

Danniv

@comcastbusiness.net Danniv Anon Re: 20 Year Repeat.. Maybe it's because Lincolnshire is a spec of a suburb that's massively full of itself. Doing ANYTHING in that town requires a fee and someone to get in your way.

Cheese

Premium Member

join:2003-10-26

Naples, FL Cheese Premium Member ATT and others... Need to get smacked down. This is getting ridiculous. vdog0341

join:2006-06-16

Leander, TX vdog0341 Member The invested and delivered here

Just a few min ago.

Rob

Premium Member

join:2001-08-25

Miami, FL Rob Premium Member Re: The invested and delivered here Is Google Fiber available in Austin? Would AT&T have invested if it wasn't for Google Fiber? WhatNow

Premium Member

join:2009-05-06

Charlotte, NC WhatNow Premium Member Re: The invested and delivered here Not likely and many of the 21 cities would not be getting it.

My friends are telling me they are replacing the oldest type of FTTC equipment so it will be mostly developments built in the 90s that will get the upgrade.

bockbock

@hcs.net bockbock Anon Re: The invested and delivered here You mean xFITL? Hah! We'll wait and see. Give it 5 more years and they just might upgrade the xFITL customers to 10 Mbps. vdog0341

join:2006-06-16

Leander, TX 1 edit vdog0341 to Rob

Member to Rob

Google is available in a very small part of Austin mostly downtown and south austin. AT&T already had fiber spread out all over the city. They're also spread out in Suburbs. Austin was ahead of the Curb on Fiber Deployment since the early 2000's. Doesn't mean everyone is offered fiber service but most of the housing developments built after 2002 had fiber installed to the home. Once again just because you have a fiber drop in your yard doesn't mean you can get service.

northstate

@northstate.net northstate to Rob

Anon to Rob

said by Rob: Is Google Fiber available in Austin? Would AT&T have invested if it wasn't for Google Fiber?



AT&T hit the next city over first (and they were one of the first Gigapower cities in the country) and has started deploying all around me along while sending sales people door to door to discuss the Gigapower product.



Competition is an amazing motivator. I live in a small area that has Gigapower service. I've had fiber available through a local ILEC for almost a decade and AT&T never took action until the local ILEC decided to roll out 1Gbps (for $49/month) and start pushing into AT&T territory (both residential and business), breaking the almost 80 year "non-compete" gentlemen's agreement.AT&T hit the next city over first (and they were one of the first Gigapower cities in the country) and has started deploying all around me along while sending sales people door to door to discuss the Gigapower product.Competition is an amazing motivator. existenz

join:2014-02-12 existenz to vdog0341

Member to vdog0341

Could you please post a test from E and W coasts? Thanks in advance. vdog0341

join:2006-06-16

Leander, TX vdog0341 Member Re: The invested and delivered here Download is solid on both coast upload about 400-600mbit.

Bill Neilson

Premium Member

join:2009-07-08

Alexandria, VA Bill Neilson to vdog0341

Premium Member to vdog0341

Interesting. Is that from UT's campus? Or, around it I should say. vdog0341

join:2006-06-16

Leander, TX vdog0341 Member Re: The invested and delivered here Suburb Northwest of Austin tabernak93

join:2015-02-16

Oklahoma City, OK tabernak93 Member At least they're still investing So long as they keep investing there's still hope. I fully expect they'll eventually end up like Verizon and stop expanding entirely, but their U-verse upgrade was fairly large and anybody that has U-verse available still has a chance of fiber.... someday.



It's going to suck for a lot of people as the U-verse upgrades winds down though and they find they were overlooked by At&t. Verizon led the way with their FIOS , but I don't know of any other DSL provider currently upgrading as much as At&t. BiggA

Premium Member

join:2005-11-23

Central CT BiggA Premium Member Shoreholders should be concerned About the lack of investment and lack of a future for AT&T. bellwire

join:2013-08-24 bellwire Member Re: Shoreholders should be concerned I know ATT is easy target to hit. But rollout in major cities continues. Like in Houston, Austin . In Austin it's not just well to do areas but all over. In Houston new houses and apartments can't go up fast enough and all with fiber. The rollout does continue maybe not as fast as everyone likes. BiggA

Premium Member

join:2005-11-23

Central CT 1 recommendation BiggA Premium Member Re: Shoreholders should be concerned They are still cherry picking a few areas here and there. When they announce plans to cover 50% or more of their customers nationwide with fiber, then it's interesting. And ultimately, they should have plans for 100% FTTH coverage. BiggA BiggA Premium Member Comcast and Cox far more interesting Comcast and Cox's DOCSIS 3.1 gigabit deployments are going to be WAY more interesting than FTTH, as they will have a far wider reach, and are going to light a fire under Verizon's butt to throw the switch on gigabit FIOS, and under AT&T's butt to deploy more Gigapower. smk11

join:2014-11-12 smk11 Member Re: Comcast and Cox far more interesting said by BiggA: Comcast and Cox's DOCSIS 3.1 gigabit deployments are going to be WAY more interesting than FTTH, as they will have a far wider reach, and are going to light a fire under Verizon's butt to throw the switch on gigabit FIOS, and under AT&T's butt to deploy more Gigapower. Good luck with that fantasy as they spin off their legacy baggage. They will be back with fixed LTE to provide your service so don't worry about that. BiggA

Premium Member

join:2005-11-23

Central CT BiggA Premium Member Re: Comcast and Cox far more interesting It will force Verizon's hand here in the northeast.

Zenit

The system is the solution

Premium Member

join:2012-05-07

Purcellville, VA Zenit Premium Member Re: Comcast and Cox far more interesting I think Verizon's hand here in the northeast is moving to dumping even more footprint on a wire-center to wire-center basis and ONLY keeping the most wealthy suburbs and critical urban areas that are crazy dense.



The executives over at VZ are intent on going 100% wireless and ditching the legacy Bell business. BiggA

Premium Member

join:2005-11-23

Central CT BiggA Premium Member Re: Comcast and Cox far more interesting Hopefully it doesn't take long for someone competent to get into the upper management at Verizon. McWireless and Shamwow need to go. compuguy

join:2003-05-26

Burke, VA compuguy to Zenit

Member to Zenit

said by Zenit: I think Verizon's hand here in the northeast is moving to dumping even more footprint on a wire-center to wire-center basis and ONLY keeping the most wealthy suburbs and critical urban areas that are crazy dense.



The executives over at VZ are intent on going 100% wireless and ditching the legacy Bell business. Agreed, makes me weary of renewing any agreement with verizon with the possibility of them selling off (to whom, I have no clue). tmc8080

join:2004-04-24

Brooklyn, NY tmc8080 to BiggA

Member to BiggA

Actually, Verizon is chomping at the bit to SELL many non core wire line assets, INCLUDING some fiber builds in Tx, CA, FL and the rest of WV... As of now, google has YET to build where there are significant Fairpoint & Frontier geographies... I wonder why? If google wants to be a problem solver, this would be the way do go about it.. serving underserved geographies. Instead they have an eye on the medium size city prizes FIRST, but don't apparently want to irritate the incumbents too much or there will be backlash in the form of new telecom/cablecom lobbying to get google out of the isp business altogether.

Though, if docsis 3.1 gets deployed with NO apparent increases in speeds.. then I hope Google does go after a prize like NYC with multi gigabit service. That'll teach em' to deploy(or not) a technology and then sit on the spectrum with high costs the way they do in cellular. BiggA

Premium Member

join:2005-11-23

Central CT ·Cox HSI

ARRIS SB6141

Asus RT-AC68

BiggA Premium Member Re: Comcast and Cox far more interesting NYC is virtually impossible to enter. Verizon owns most of the conduit/ducts that house the cabling, and it's so dense, that it's incredibly expensive and problematic to dig anywhere. The only way TWC got into phone and internet is because they were the cable company, so Verizon let them right in back in the '80s. There are a few areas with RCN, but no that many.



Verizon has already sold TX, FL, and CA. I don't think they have any FIOS in WV though?



I don't know what TWC is going to do with D3.1 if the merger doesn't go through. Comcast and Cox have both publicly stated big plans for gigabit internet service. I still can't figure out why, as they have no competition in many areas, and are already faster than FIOS in the remaining areas, but they seem intent on doing gig.

Zenit

The system is the solution

Premium Member

join:2012-05-07

Purcellville, VA 1 recommendation Zenit Premium Member Re: Comcast and Cox far more interesting VZ has been out of WV since 2009. FIOS was planned by Seidenberg, but they never actually signed franchises or purchased equipment. (Fiber to the Press Release, VZ style)



What was VZ WV was C&P Telephone of WV (Bell). VZ never owned GTE WV as that went to Frontier in 1993 well before GTE merged with Bell Atlantic.



The copper network VZ owned in WV was in REALLY rough shape - VZ barely spent a dime in the state and allowed everything to fall apart to barely functioning. The W.VA state PUC was considering not letting VZ sell but after reviewing all of the complaints for malfunctioning POTS service they approved the sale to Frontier on the contingency that they clean up VZ's mess to the point that the network functions and deploy DSL widely throughout the state - not just the GTE/Citizens areas but the Bell areas that they had acquired.



To this date Frontier is still working on cleaning up the network, and honestly they will never finish the job. There is not enough profit motive out there in today's shitty economic environment to bother.



I will give Frontier some credit where credit is due - they have installed DSL service in rural places VZ would just ignore totally. ("Let them eat LTE")



The only ISP that could be considered "competent"* and providing modern speeds consistently in that state is Comcast - but Comcast only serves the panhandle, and only PORTIONS of the panhandle where the population density is enough. They are lucky they are not going out with SpinCO or being transferred to Charter.



*Comcast network engineering is top notch, customer service is horrible, but we all know this.

why60loss

Premium Member

join:2012-09-20 why60loss Premium Member Re: Comcast and Cox far more interesting said by Zenit: VZ has been out of WV since 2009. FIOS was planned by Seidenberg, but they never actually signed franchises or purchased equipment. (Fiber to the Press Release, VZ style)



What was VZ WV was C&P Telephone of WV (Bell). VZ never owned GTE WV as that went to Frontier in 1993 well before GTE merged with Bell Atlantic.



The copper network VZ owned in WV was in REALLY rough shape - VZ barely spent a dime in the state and allowed everything to fall apart to barely functioning. The W.VA state PUC was considering not letting VZ sell but after reviewing all of the complaints for malfunctioning POTS service they approved the sale to Frontier on the contingency that they clean up VZ's mess to the point that the network functions and deploy DSL widely throughout the state - not just the GTE/Citizens areas but the Bell areas that they had acquired.



To this date Frontier is still working on cleaning up the network, and honestly they will never finish the job. There is not enough profit motive out there in today's shitty economic environment to bother.



I will give Frontier some credit where credit is due - they have installed DSL service in rural places VZ would just ignore totally. ("Let them eat LTE")



The only ISP that could be considered "competent"* and providing modern speeds consistently in that state is Comcast - but Comcast only serves the panhandle, and only PORTIONS of the panhandle where the population density is enough. They are lucky they are not going out with SpinCO or being transferred to Charter.



*Comcast network engineering is top notch, customer service is horrible, but we all know this. Sadly TWC for the most part has both Horrible network management and customer service unless you happen to live in a "golden" market like LA or NYC then they care to deploy something like Maxx while leaving the rest on 50/5 for more than Comcast customers in the sticks pay for 105/10 or 50/10.

strongarm

@comcast.net strongarm to Zenit

Anon to Zenit

Comcast also serves Huntington and several surrounding communities like Barboursville. Somewhat surprised they haven't divested it yet as it came from Adelphia originally. compuguy

join:2003-05-26

Burke, VA compuguy to Zenit

Member to Zenit

said by Zenit: VZ has been out of WV since 2009. FIOS was planned by Seidenberg, but they never actually signed franchises or purchased equipment. (Fiber to the Press Release, VZ style)



What was VZ WV was C&P Telephone of WV (Bell). VZ never owned GTE WV as that went to Frontier in 1993 well before GTE merged with Bell Atlantic.



The copper network VZ owned in WV was in REALLY rough shape - VZ barely spent a dime in the state and allowed everything to fall apart to barely functioning. The W.VA state PUC was considering not letting VZ sell but after reviewing all of the complaints for malfunctioning POTS service they approved the sale to Frontier on the contingency that they clean up VZ's mess to the point that the network functions and deploy DSL widely throughout the state - not just the GTE/Citizens areas but the Bell areas that they had acquired.



To this date Frontier is still working on cleaning up the network, and honestly they will never finish the job. There is not enough profit motive out there in today's shitty economic environment to bother.



I will give Frontier some credit where credit is due - they have installed DSL service in rural places VZ would just ignore totally. ("Let them eat LTE")



The only ISP that could be considered "competent"* and providing modern speeds consistently in that state is Comcast - but Comcast only serves the panhandle, and only PORTIONS of the panhandle where the population density is enough. They are lucky they are not going out with SpinCO or being transferred to Charter.



*Comcast network engineering is top notch, customer service is horrible, but we all know this. I seriously doubt this, but if the TW merger fails...would Cox communications be their next target? tabernak93

join:2015-02-16

Oklahoma City, OK tabernak93 to tmc8080

Member to tmc8080

Interesting point, I never really thought that Google should go after some underserved areas to prove a point. It'd be interesting to see them go after some rural areas. Electrical cooperatives would make natural partners and they'd have the right of way to string the fiber. It'd decimate whatever DSL providers were in those areas. We all already know that being profitable in more densely populated areas isn't difficult.

ham3843

join:2015-01-15

USA ham3843 Member Meanwhile majority of AT&T customers.... Still getting 768/128 Kbps at 36$/mo....



Disgraceful. ncbill

Premium Member

join:2007-01-23

Winston Salem, NC ncbill Premium Member "Gigapower" city, can't even get U-Verse I live less than 2 miles from the local university, in a "Gigapower" city, yet I can't even get U-Verse, just 6MBps down (really 5.1MBps because of overhead) DSL.



After over 7 years of having a rock-solid DSL connection, it has had multiple unexplained outages in the last few months, so I finally switched to cable broadband (5x the download speed).



If you are a legacy AT&T DSL customer, good luck. your comment..

