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AT&T says it won't build fiber home Internet in half of its wireline footprint

30 points| LorenDB | 1 year ago |arstechnica.com | reply

26 comments

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[+] kalleboo|1 year ago|reply
Image if electricity or landline phones were invented today. Rural electrification would never have happened.

(Similarly, if the web browser was invented today, it would never have made it into an app store)

[+] genter|1 year ago|reply
I know some people that are building a house in a rural area. Nearest electricity is less than a quarter mile away. PG&E quoted them $100,000 to bring in power. They're going solar.
[+] thedanbob|1 year ago|reply
AT&T won't even build fiber home internet where they've already got fiber. One of their fiber lines has been running under my driveway for years but they've never offered it at my address.
[+] sidewndr46|1 year ago|reply
I've got fiber in the backyard from Spectrum and Google Fiber out in front of the house. Neither offer fiber service to me. Some contractor for Google comes out and spray paints new markings indicating I should have a tap placed every 6 months or so. Seasons come and seasons go, but the paint marks still keep getting refreshed.
[+] Optimal_Persona|1 year ago|reply
Funny, AT&T says they couldn't offer fiber to my address at my old house, or the one I moved to across the street. Of course I can get Sonic fiber at both addresses...which uses...drumroll...AT&T's fiber infrastructure.

It pains me especially that this is the company that way back in the day gave us Claude Shannon, Richard Hamming, and the transistor.

I don't know why they want to get out of the copper business...after 2022 FTC change, copper lines increased like 10X in cost and the provider has literally no legal obligation to provide uptime guarantee/support, sounds like a telecom's wet dream!

[+] baby_souffle|1 year ago|reply
Yep!

I just got back from visiting family out in the boonies. They have had fiber on their street for more than a decade. It runs right over their drive way and down a few more telephone poles to … the dslam. The dslam which is still v1 speeds and att won’t even sell new dsl service on it / is aggressively pushing old customers out.

They’ve been happy starlink users for a while now.

[+] maxsilver|1 year ago|reply
Yeah, this is also my experience.

AT&T won't even build fiber home internet to urban/suburban residents that have existing fiber-to-the-node (original U-Verse) service -- places less than a mile away from functional residential AT&T fiber drop already (DSLAM).

They're still happy to charge me the $100/month for that ~60mbps VDSL copper service though. (even though, if anything happens to that line, they're refusing to repair/replace it)

It's ridiculous.

[+] sevensor|1 year ago|reply
The rural United States suffers another cut from the deregulatory knife. No grocer. No rail service. No bus service. No retail. No health care. And now no telecommunications. What’s next, electric?
[+] hollerith|1 year ago|reply
It is possible to run internet connectivity over copper wires, so to say "no telecommunications" is catastrophizing.
[+] voidwtf|1 year ago|reply
The rural electorate has voted overwhelmingly for candidates who oppose these regulations. This is apparently what they want.
[+] joezydeco|1 year ago|reply
Is this a side effect of AT&T using cheaper passive optical networks for their current buildouts?
[+] altairprime|1 year ago|reply
More that AT&T has to maintain or increase profits in an economic climate where people’s ability to spend is flat or decreasing, and so they’ve been steadily reducing their infrastructure investment rather than seeing their profits drop. Now that they can expect the FCC approvals necessary to kill last-mile service, they’re set for a few more years, and I expect their long-term goal is to become an exclusively wireless telco.
[+] hamandcheese|1 year ago|reply
If AT&T wants out so bad, they should give their copper network away.
[+] nradov|1 year ago|reply
To whom? The legacy copper network probably has negative value at this point but AT&T is locked in by certain contracts and legal agreements (same for other legacy telcos). They would probably have to pay another company to take on those obligations.
[+] charlie0|1 year ago|reply
They'll do it.... if the government subsidizes it.