AT&T Gigapower Fiber Network Expanding To 38 Additional Cities
AT&T announces plans to expand the availability of its blazing fast GigaPower fiber Internet service to homes, apartments, and businesses in parts of 38 additional metro areas across the United States. Once completed, AT&T's GigaPower service will boast coverage of at least 56 metro areas, the company said.
The expansion is notable in part because AT&T essentially threatened to take its ball and go home when the FCC was proposing net neutrality rules. If you set the DeLorean for around this time last year, you'll catch AT&T saying the FCC's insistence on reclassifying broadband as a public utility would force the company to stop investing in the expansion of its high-speed fiber connections, at least until it knew what the rules would be.
Well, the Open Internet Order is pretty clear (despite claims to the contrary), and though AT&T recently said it had to shelve several planned services while its lawyers figure out what is and isn't allowed, the threat to sideline its fiber network proved an empty one.
"Customer demand for AT&T GigaPower and sales have exceeded expectations since launching speeds up to 1 gigabit per second in Austin," said Brad Bentley, executive vice president and chief marketing officer, AT&T Entertainment Group. "The faster speeds offered through AT&T GigaPower keep consumers and small businesses connected as they are accessing more content on more devices. This improves a customer’s experience when they are connecting to the cloud, hosting a videoconference, streaming videos and music, playing online games and more."
It also keeps AT&T competitive with Google Fiber and others rolling out 1Gbps (or faster) service to residential neighborhoods. At present, AT&T GigaPower is available in 20 of the nation's largest metro areas, including Los Angeles and West Palm Beach, both of which were added today.
The expansion is notable in part because AT&T essentially threatened to take its ball and go home when the FCC was proposing net neutrality rules. If you set the DeLorean for around this time last year, you'll catch AT&T saying the FCC's insistence on reclassifying broadband as a public utility would force the company to stop investing in the expansion of its high-speed fiber connections, at least until it knew what the rules would be.
Well, the Open Internet Order is pretty clear (despite claims to the contrary), and though AT&T recently said it had to shelve several planned services while its lawyers figure out what is and isn't allowed, the threat to sideline its fiber network proved an empty one.
"Customer demand for AT&T GigaPower and sales have exceeded expectations since launching speeds up to 1 gigabit per second in Austin," said Brad Bentley, executive vice president and chief marketing officer, AT&T Entertainment Group. "The faster speeds offered through AT&T GigaPower keep consumers and small businesses connected as they are accessing more content on more devices. This improves a customer’s experience when they are connecting to the cloud, hosting a videoconference, streaming videos and music, playing online games and more."
It also keeps AT&T competitive with Google Fiber and others rolling out 1Gbps (or faster) service to residential neighborhoods. At present, AT&T GigaPower is available in 20 of the nation's largest metro areas, including Los Angeles and West Palm Beach, both of which were added today.
