AT&T’s Fiber Fairy Tale

Holding your breath waiting for AT&T’s GigaPower 1Gbps U-verse upgrade to arrive in a town near you is hazardous to your health.

Despite a blizzard of press releases promoting the forthcoming arrival of gigabit Internet access from AT&T, the fine print reveals as little as one percent of some communities will actually get the upgrades.

In Winston-Salem, N.C., city officials cannot even get a firm commitment from AT&T that it will deliver the faster service to the 63 businesses the city chose as early candidates for the fiber upgrade.

In June, the city and AT&T signed an agreement for gigabit broadband expansion using AT&T’s GigaPower U-verse platform. But AT&T largely gets to decide where, when and even if it will invest in upgraded service. The city did not impose many conditions beyond a requirement that AT&T provide up to 20 free Internet connections to community sites with a one-time installation cost of $300 to $500. Another 20 connections would be provided to small to mid-size businesses, with no obligation to buy services.

In response, AT&T said it would only commit to reviewing the city’s list and “make an effort to serve the proposed locations if they are in the vicinity of where service will be available.”

If those locations fall outside of AT&T’s plans, no gigabit fiber.

A significant indicator of the true extent of AT&T’s expansion plans is whether the company is allocating capital spending commensurate with the costs of running fiber optic cable to individual homes and businesses. So far, AT&T has not. With no obligation to deliver the service AT&T is implying it will offer, the company is free to wire a handful of technology parks, businesses, and new housing developments and claim to have met its commitment, despite the fact 99 percent of area residents have no access to the faster speeds.

For the benefit of low-income residents who lack affordable Internet access, AT&T also promised it would offer some lower-speed Internet connections in a limited number of apartment complexes in low-income areas.
Here are the sites nominated by the city of Winston-Salem for AT&T gigabit broadband. AT&T’s response: ‘Maybe.’

Community sites: Aids Care Service; Boys & Girls Clubs at New Walkertown Road and Reynolds Park; Brown & Douglas Neighborhood Center; Russell Recreation Center; Liberty CDC; Community Care Center; ElBuen Pastor; Forsyth Technical Community College’s Woodruff Center; Gateway YWCA; Knollwood Baptist Church; Little Creek Neighborhood Center; Malloy/Jordan East Winston Heritage Center; MLK Jr. Center; Reynolda Branch library; S.G. Atkins CDC; SciWorks; Sedge Garden Center; Shepherd’s Center; South Fork Center; Southside Library; United Metropolitan Church; Winston Lake YMCA.

Small- to mid-size businesses: Bellomy Research; Campus Partners; Carolina Liquid Chemistries Corp.; Center for Design Innovation; CML Microcircuits (USA); Computer Credit Inc.; Computing Solutions Group Inc.; COR365 Innovation Solutions; Dairy Fresh Inc.; DataChambers LLC; Davenport Transportation Consulting; Debbie’s Staffing Service; Eastridge Technology Inc.; Exhibit Works; Flywheel; IMG College; Interact 911; KeraNetics LLC; Key Services Inc.; Kings Plaza; MissionMode; Ocular Systems; Odigia; OnceLogix LLC; Out of Our Minds Animation Studios Inc.; Page’s Sporting Goods; PhoneTree; Piedmont Propulsion; Segmented Marketing Solutions Inc.; Small Footprint Inc.; SolidSpace LLC; Special Event Services; Sunrise Technologies Inc.; The Clearing House Payment Center; Triad Semiconductor; TrueLook; Voyss Solutions; Washington Perk site at Washington Park; West 3rd Street Media; West End Mill Works.

Source: City of Winston-Salem

Verizon Communications today announced its FiOS Internet customers will be getting free speed upgrades that match upload and download speeds — the only provider in FiOS markets to offer speed equality.

Verizon will start transitioning qualifying current residential customers to higher upload speeds for free throughout the coming months, but we can help get you higher on the upgrade list if you keep reading. Later this year, existing and new FiOS small-business customers also will receive this upgrade.

“Faster upload speeds means better sharing experiences,” said Mike Ritter, Verizon’s chief marketing officer for consumer and mass business. “All Internet sharing – whether videos, large photo files or gaming – starts with uploading. FiOS all-fiber-optic technology offers a unique opportunity to enhance our customers’ Internet experience on a mass scale by increasing our upload speeds to equal to our industry-leading download speeds. As the Internet of Things becomes a reality, equal download and upload speeds will become essential.”

Verizon’s upgrade also lets the company point out a shortcoming of most of its cable competitors, upstream speeds lag far behind downstream speeds. Many cable operators still only offer no better than 5Mbps upload speeds, even while offering 50, 100, or 150Mbps for downloads.

Verizon says it noticed upload activity has been on the increase for some time, and with the upstream speed upgrades, it expects double the upload activity it sees today by 2016.

“Verizon’s decision to give every FiOS Internet customer upload speeds that mirror its industry-leading download speeds is a step forward for U.S. digital consumers – and unique among the major U.S. broadband Internet providers,” said Matt Davis, program director of consumer multiplay and broadband services research for IDC. “Because the upgrade is free, it delivers tremendous value to FiOS subscribers and strongly positions Verizon to meet the growing demand for upstream Internet speed.”

Verizon FiOS also lacks usage caps or consumption billing, giving customers a worry-free Internet experience that does not carry the risk of surprise charges on a future bill.

Here are Verizon’s new speed tiers:

• 15/5Mbps is now 15/15Mbps
• 25/5Mbps is now 25/25Mbps
• 50/25Mbps is now 50/50Mbps
• 75/35Mbps is now 75/75Mbps
• 150/65Mbps is now 150/150Mbps
• 300/65Mbps is now 300/300Mbps
• 500/100Mbps is now 500/500Mbps

The free speed upgrades will begin with customers enrolled in Verizon’s My Rewards+ program. You can get on the upgrade list today by enrolling in the rewards program on the My Rewards+ website.  My Rewards+ is Verizon’s free loyalty program that rewards customers for paying a bill online, renting or buying videos on demand, or in recognition of a birthday, service anniversary or other event. My Rewards+ members can use earned points for Visa Prepaid Cards or other gift cards good at participating merchants such as Starbucks Coffee, L.L. Bean, Panera Bread, Target, Amazon, Dunkin’ Donuts, Staples and others. Customers can also choose to donate their rewards to a charity of their choice.

Verizon is running several promotions (until 9/20/2014) for new customers who want in on the new FiOS speeds. The most popular Triple Play promotion is their 25/25Mbps Internet service, which also includes Preferred HD TV and nationwide home phone service (equipment rental required). This includes a two-year price guarantee for $89.99 per month when ordered online and $99.99 per month otherwise (not including equipment charges, taxes and fees). In addition, new customers can receive a free LG G Pad 8.3 LTE or up to $200 off any other tablet available from Verizon Wireless if they are willing to take out a new, two-year service agreement. This part of the promotion is less attractive to us because the offer requires the tablet be activated on the Verizon Wireless network, which means ongoing charges.

Customers of Paris-based Bouygues Telecom in some of France’s largest cities will soon have access to 400Mbps fiber to the home broadband (with an upgrade to 1Gbps later this year), as well as a television and phone package that combined will cost $35.43 a month.

The company’s new fiber offer commences June 30 and comes as a result of fierce competition for the French broadband customer.

Bbox Sensation Fiber is available from both fiber to the home and fiber to the building connections throughout urban areas in France, including Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Nice, Toulouse and Bordeaux.

Fiber continues to gradually replace older copper-base wire networks in France. But unlike in North America, European telephone companies believe their future isn’t only in selling wireless. Upgrading those networks to fiber to the home service allow companies to sell bundled packages of phone, wireless, television and broadband Internet access.

Bouygues Telecom’s fiber to the home network now reaches 3.3 million French homes with more to come. Its older fiber to the neighborhood network reaches another 5 million customers.

Customers who sign up for the fiber to the home service by the end of August will get two months free

Here are the details:

Bbox Sensation Fiber (first phase) includes:

Internet

• 400Mbps service with upgrade to 1Gbps by the end of this year;
• 50GB cloud storage

Television

• Up to 170 TV channels, including 29 HD channels
• DVR with 300GB storage
• Bbox Video on Demand: Thousands of multilingual titles available in HD and DTS
• Bbox Games: Over 50 multiplayer video games accessible on the network at any one time
• Multi-Screen: Watch on portable devices

Telephone

• Unlimited calls to mobiles in France and the French commonwealth, U.S.A., Canada, China, Singapore and South Korea;
• Unlimited calls to fixed landlines in 120 countries.

Availability

This fiber offer available in Paris, Lyon, Villeurbanne, Marseille, Toulouse, Nice, Bordeaux, Issy les Moulineaux, Boulogne Billancourt, Courbevoie, Aubervilliers, Charenton le Pont, Saint Maurice, Alfortville, Maisons Alfort, Neuilly sur Seine, Puteaux, Chatillon Montrouge Vanves Malakoff, Levallois-Perret, Cergy Saint-Cloud, Garches, Palaiseau, Antony, Clamart, Rueil Malmaison, and Sèvres.

While your Internet bill is likely north of $50 a month, customers of Slovak Telecom in the eastern European nation of Slovakia will get a free speed upgrade to 300/30Mbps effective Aug. 1, with no change in price.

Slovak Telecom customers on its fiber to the home network subscribed to the super premium “Magi Internet XL” plan will continue to pay just over $27 a month for the service. Customers will see the speed upgrades gradually roll out across the service area over the summer and fall. Customers will be given new equipment to support the new speeds.

Meanwhile, a competing fixed line provider, Slovanet, is taking a cue from Google Fiber and polled residents of the city of Dunajska Streda where it should deploy its fiber to the home service first. Slovanet customers will be able to buy 100Mbps fiber broadband through its subsidiary MadNet, along with a 100-channel TV package and phone service.

The broadband package alone costs $31 a month, more expensive than Slovak Telecom, but it comes with some stunning promotions for customers, starting with a $1.36 installation fee. The other generous offers: a Lenovo brand tablet for $1.36, a cordless phone for $1.36, and a choice of wireless routers as low as $1.36. An add on wireless package is also promotionally priced at $1.36.

Slovanet offers a 20-channel basic cable TV package at no charge to current customers and a 35-channel TV package that includes many of the most popular channels in Slovakia for $12 a month. Phone service is free if you are willing to pay 5¢ per minute to numbers of non-Slovanet customers (calling other Slovanet customers is free).

If you want unlimited local/regional calling, the phone service costs $5.29 a month. Unlimited long distance can be added for $10.77 a month.

AT&T’s claim it wants to expand gigabit fiber to the home service to as many as 100 cities nationwide requires closer inspection on news this week it has slashed spending on its wireline business.

Investors knocked AT&T’s share price today as they learned earnings from AT&T’s wired networks will be lower than expected.

TheStreet reported this morning the spending cuts are so significant, they are creating a financial risk for a number of AT&T’s major vendors.

Research firm Jefferies issued a research note warning that AT&T’s spending cuts began last month and seem to be ongoing. As a result the companies that have the most exposure to AT&T’s wireline business are at increased financial risk. Those suppliers include optical fiber equipment manufacturer Alcatel-Lucent, as well as Ciena, Juniper, ADTRAN, Finisar, and JDS Uniphase. As a result, all but Finisar saw their share prices drop significantly in morning trading.

Earlier today, AT&T reported it was ahead of schedule to complete its Project VIP expansion of its 4G LTE wireless and U-verse networks. As U-verse expansion nears an end, vendor orders may be in decline. Wall Street analysts see no evidence AT&T is preparing to spend much on any other expansion efforts, including fiber to the home service.

As Broadband Reports’ notes, without significant capital to invest in fiber upgrades, they are not going to happen.

These cuts make it hard to take the company’s claims of meaningful 1 Gbps fiber expansion seriously as there’s simply no budget cordoned off for such a project (“Project VIP” funds are already in use on other efforts). While AT&T has the press believing they’re deploying 1 Gbps to “up to 100 cities,” AT&T’s shrinking CAPEX tells a different story entirely.

Fiber to the home service is more costly than AT&T U-verse’s fiber to the neighborhood service because it requires a fiber cable be brought directly to each home or business — a more costly endeavor that requires careful cable burial or overhead drop line replacement, as well as the possibility of in-home wiring adjustments. Considering the billions spent on U-verse expansion to date, at least as much will be required to upgrade to fiber to the home service and there are no signs AT&T is ready to invest in anything beyond press releases.