AT&T Prefers Fiber to Fixed 5G While Verizon is heavily hyping fixed 5G as an alternative residential broadband option, AT&T execs believe that simply deploying more fiber is the smarter, cheaper bet. Speaking this week at the Cowen and Company 46th Annual Technology, Media & Telecom Broker Conference, AT&T CFO John Stephens stated the company doesn't see the sense in building a small cell network for urban and suburban fixed wireless service.

"It’s the cost efficiency," Stephens told attendees. "Once you [get] the fixed wireless connection from the alley to your house, that’s great you can do that, but you have to get it from the alley into the core network." AT&T does currently offer a fixed wireless service creatively named "Fixed Wireless Internet." The service features a 10 Mbps LTE connection with a 160 GB monthly cap. From there, users pay $10 per each 50GB of additional data consumed -- up to a maximum of $200 per month. The service costs $60 per month with a one-year contract, or $70 per month without a contract (and after the contract period expires). But as AT&T executives realized it requires a collection of small cells to hand wireless traffic off, the company found that "building that out can be very expensive when you’re likely doing it in an urban market in a residential area that already has a lot of fiber [or] a lot of competition [from] incumbent telephone and cable companies." As such, Stephens thinks just deploying fiber makes better sense in many of these areas. “It may be very inexpensive for us compared to the [5G] alternative and gives the customer a tremendous level of service,” Stephens added. “It may be very inexpensive for us compared to the [5G] alternative and gives the customer a tremendous level of service,” Stephens added.







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Most recommended from 67 comments



Ut98Ex

join:2012-07-11

Georgetown, TX 31 recommendations Ut98Ex Member So what changed? They spent the last 10+ years saying how wonderful Uverse is/was and how fiber was overkill. I guess they finally saw the light?

buzz_4_20

join:2003-09-20

Biddeford, ME 13 recommendations buzz_4_20 Member About time. Wow... I can't believe an ISP is finally admitting that Fiber is the better method to get bits moved around to stationary buildings.



Unless you carry it around... Fixed Line > Wireless

Anon03dcd

@138.197.174.x 11 recommendations Anon03dcd Anon yeah well then give me me than 10 Mbps because you sure as hell don't have fiber here at&t. And quit sending me flyer twice a week for your shitty 10 Mbps service until you do. shmerl

join:2013-10-21 9 recommendations shmerl Member Finally they see the obvious. mmay149q

Premium Member

join:2009-03-05

Dallas, TX 8 recommendations mmay149q Premium Member I'd be willing to bet That they probably aren't seeing good subscriber numbers for the fixed 4G they were looking for, so they're starting to realize that people probably won't jump on the fixed 5G bandwagon, especially if it has those same limitations. But then again, as an ex-ATT employee, they really were all about the money and only the money, so if they're saying they aren't going to do it because it's more expensive, then it totally makes sense to me that they'd switch to decide it's a good idea to run fiber. GusHerb94

join:2011-11-04

Chicago, IL 6 recommendations GusHerb94 Member AT&T prefers fiber to fixed 5G Well if this is the case where the hell is my fiber then??? SkiBumJ799

join:2007-02-02

Dallas, TX 1 edit 3 recommendations SkiBumJ799 Member AT&T I wonder if any of the AT&T haters here have considered that deploying the FTTN network while waiting for fiber prices to decrease over the next 15ish years was the better business decision?



Today, AT&T is growing it’s fiber footprint; VZ sold a substantial portion of its fiber footprint. Looks like AT&T made the better decision to me. en103

join:2011-05-02 2 recommendations en103 Member I can understand .. The 'urban' and in some cases 'suburban' deployment of fiber - especially in greenfield markets.

Urban markets - especially in apartments/condos/townhomes, capacity becomes an issue. Suburbia, it can really depend on the city, and population density/market.

Suburban Los Angeles is usually a no-brainer - especially in areas where the wires are on the poles.

In suburban Chicago, you might not have that high of usage depending on how many of the homes are actually populated, or are run by gangs.

This 'may' be a push by AT&T execs to attempt to grab funding from POTUS for an infrastructure project.

ham3843

join:2015-01-15

USA 2 recommendations ham3843 Member If only Ivan Seidenberg had been CEO of AT&T ! If there was an alternative dimension where AT&T picked Ivan Seidenberg as CEO, I believe that

AT&T would have kept him and FiOS would have been in over 90+ of AT&T's footprint or more today.



In any case Randall is late to the realization that FTTH is the future but finally on board, and plenty of more progressive execs would have seen the light a decade ago or more like Ivan did.