
AT&T Announces Intent to Build 1 Gigabit Fiber Network in Austin - ben1040
http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=24032&cdvn=news&newsarticleid=36275&mapcode=consumer|mk-att-wireless-networks
======
tc
This message is meant for exactly two groups: 1) Google, 2) other
municipalities.

AT&T is telling Google that they'll play in any market Google commits to and
drive the margins out of it. They want Google to stop doing this, and they're
hoping to make Google question its financial model for this capital outlay. (I
doubt it will faze Google.)

AT&T is warning other municipalities to not cut Google any sweetheart deals
that they're not willing to extend to AT&T. This is a potent message for
municipalities that are sitting pretty on financial or other perks they've
extracted from AT&T or other telecoms. AT&T is warning them the gravy train
stops when they let in Google.

~~~
shmerl
Why, it's a clear message to the public as well, which states: AT&T is only
ready to improve their service when threatened with competition. Otherwise
forget it. At least one has to give them a credit that they had guts to admit
it.

~~~
aspensmonster
Yep.

"This expanded investment is not expected to materially alter AT&T’s
anticipated 2013 capital expenditures."

So, they've had the capability for a while now. They just didn't see any
reason to bother with the hassle of deploying a newer technology when they
could just keep maintaining U-verse over twisted pair, even if capex stayed
the same for either choice. Which is an interesting choice.

~~~
jaggederest
To be fair, T's capex expenditures are massive, something like $5 billion per
quarter or more. So to 'materially alter', it'd have to be like $3 billion _a
year_ or more.

~~~
aspensmonster
Indeed. And there is the possibility that they just won't move on anything
until FY 2014 or later. Though commandar brings up the point that even if they
didn't have the capital themselves to deploy fiber, we _did_ give them the
capital once and they squandered it.

------
nlh
Speed is not even the biggest thing here. Heck Verizon FiOS offers fiber to
the home in NYC and has speeds of 300Mbit/s. I'm sure if they wanted to go to
1Gbit they could. As can AT&T in Austin.

The thing that's exciting about Google Fiber is what it represents --
reasonable cost, no bandwidth caps, net neutrality, etc. Google WANTS its
customers to use the Internet as much as possible. The more HD videos people
watch on YouTube and the more people surf the web the more ads they show and
the more money they make. The opposite is true with AT&T -- they'll start
metering and charging the second they can.

I'd take 100Mbit Google service over 1Gbit AT&T service any day of the week.

~~~
pifflesnort
> _Heck Verizon FiOS offers fiber to the home in NYC and has speeds of
> 300Mbit/s_

Where? The entire time I've lived in NYC, in neighborhoods with population
density between 30k to 70k _people per square mile_ , I've never, ever, ever
had FIOS available to me.

Sure, I've heard about the rare building that has it, but as far as I can
tell, it's marketing with just enough actual deployment that we can't call it
vaporware.

~~~
jamesaguilar
<http://www22.verizon.com/local/new-york-fios/> Google search term: verizon
fios nyc. Put Manhattan in the search box on the map. Looks like a few hundred
buildings in a 1 mile radius from the center of Manhattan.

~~~
king_jester
When you look at that map, the majority of manhattan doesn't have fios
available, let alone the other boroughs.

~~~
jamesaguilar
What? <http://i.imgur.com/r6ZJny0.png> Looking at that map, it's not clear at
all that Manhattan doesn't have coverage. And this is only what's within a two
mile radius of the center.

~~~
pifflesnort
It only looks like a lot when you're not zoomed in. The density here is very,
very, very high. The vast majority of buildings aren't covered.

------
geuis
This makes little sense to me. Instead of building in the same market as
Google, go build in another market with no competition! Why layout double the
infrastructure when and get into a price war when you can do the same thing
somewhere else and be able to charge more? That's my pro-business argument.

My pro-customer argument is that this is great for competition in Austin.

My I-live-in-SF argument is why isn't anyone doing this for us? I can't really
think of another major city in the US outside of NY, Chicaco, or Boston where
this would have the most impact. You have thousands of companies built on the
Internet in SF. Lots of us techies live here. Please, give us a choice beyond
Comcast!

~~~
joshe
Sonic.net is trying to build fiber in SF. Only held up by permitting issues.
Latest update from the CEO is on the forums here:

[https://forums.sonic.net/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1085&s...](https://forums.sonic.net/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1085&start=30#p7528)

~~~
raldi
That's like saying a manned Mars colony is "only" being held up by
transportation issues.

------
jacobmarble
"AT&T’s expanded fiber plans in Austin anticipate it will be granted the same
terms and conditions as Google on issues such as geographic scope of
offerings, rights of way, permitting, state licenses and any investment
incentives."

Did Google do the political work here and leave the door open for competition?

~~~
bradleyjg
It's rich that ATT, successor company to Southwestern Bell, is complaining
about alledged subsidies to another company to enable a fiber rollout.

Southwestern Bell and its sister baby bells were subsidized to the tune of
hundreds of billions of dollars in the 90s in exchange for a promise to roll
out a nationwide network of fiber to the home. Needless to say the network
never materialized but the telecoms kept the money.

Ref:
[http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070810_0026...](http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070810_002683.html)

~~~
bdcravens
<pedantic> Actually, AT&T _is_ Southwestern Bell, not so much a "successor"
company. SBC acquired AT&T and changed the name. </pedantic>

~~~
ghshephard
Actually, I don't think you are being pedantic. The lineage is really
important/interesting.

Here, in the Bay Area, the majority of the LEC lines belonged to Pacific Bell
(You can almost always tell who the "real" company is by looking at the cable-
vaults, the names of the holding company is written in engraved/raised metal
that will last for 100+ years). The SF Giants Stadium was born as "PacBell
Park"

Somewhere around 1997/1998, SBC Acquired all of Pacific Bell - so 100% of the
PacBell LEC lines became SBC lines. Your Phone Bill now read "SBC", and a few
years later, PacBell Park became SBC Park.

Then, in 2005, SBC acquired AT&T, and, because AT&T had a stronger global
brand, they changed their name to be "AT&T", even though AT&T was now just one
component of the larger SBC.

What's _really_ confusing, is somewhere around 2003/2004, LEC competition was
deregulated a bit, and the 2003 AT&T starting offering Local Phone services in
the Bay area.

So, you ran into scenarios where you would get a visit from both AT&T and SBC
trying to sell you local phone services. I actually purchased a pretty good
sized Long Distance/Data/LEC package from AT&T for around $15K MRC for our
office buildings in Sunnyvale.

The reason this is confusing, is that when SBC acquired AT&T, you now had two
classes of AT&T customers, those with SBC legacy facilities, and those with
AT&T legacy facilities. For about 5 years after the acquisition, every telecom
consultant I dealt with avoided the confusion (for some definition of avoid,
and confusion) - by continuing to refer to anyone getting their services from
2003 SBC, as "SBC Customers", even though, for the last several years, their
phone bill read "AT&T".

So, ironically, for some customers in the Bay Area, AT&T lines _actually are_
AT&T lines, but for most customers, they are SBC/Pacific Bell lines.

~~~
guelo
Same confusion happened when ATT's cellular business was sold to Cingular,
there were two types of customers.

------
james33
Looks like Google's long-term plan is starting to unfold. Once everyone has
super high-speed internet, Google OS can begin to thrive.

~~~
dsfasfasf
Unless Google gets killed by a better search engine. Which is a real
possibility.

~~~
grinich
Are you kidding?

~~~
kgen
I thought so too, but then I remembered Watson, and just how far off we are
from search being fully context-aware.

~~~
chc
When somebody says "real possibility," that normally means something like "has
a high enough chance of happening that it's worth considering." It is
"possible" in the sense that there are things that are better than Google that
could exist, but none of those things are here right now, the chances of
somebody appearing out of nowhere and coming out with something so much better
that everyone switches to it are practically zero. It's not a real possibility
— it's just a hypothetical situation.

~~~
kgen
Watson was demonstrated on live television, how is that not a possibility that
they adapt that technology into a publicly available search engine?

~~~
kalleboo
IBM seem to only be interested in applying it to Medical. It's probably way
too processor intensive to use as a search engine, and they can make lots of
money selling hardware to hospitals instead of making pennies on ads.

~~~
jamiek88
Processor intensive now. In 5 years? 10?

~~~
chc
In 10 years, Google will almost certainly have something that takes advantage
of the day's computing power as well.

------
ccarter84
Great - Austin households get two giga-bit networks competing to get first to
their doorsteps and the rest of the country gets to watch in wonder.

~~~
OGinparadise
Make it one, Google will almost certainly close shop soon after AT & T does
theirs. AT&T then will double prices.

Notice the zingers to Google and to Austin officials: "AT&T’s expanded fiber
plans in Austin anticipate it will be granted the same terms and conditions as
Google on issues such as geographic scope of offerings, rights of way,
permitting, state licenses and any investment incentives...AT&T consistently
invests in U.S. communities -- $98 billion in capital in the past five years,
more than any other public company"

AT& T is most likely gonna sue Austin unless they provide them with the same
incentives as Google is getting.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Make it one, Google will almost certainly close shop soon after AT & T does
> theirs.

Yeah, just like Google stopped making Chrome once other browser vendors
followed their lead with a focus on JavaScript performance.

~~~
OGinparadise
Yeah, running an ISP is exactly like, and as profitable as developing a
browser based on Apple's work. Running an ISP is surely Google's strong point
and core business.

Why didn't you compare Fiber to the
[http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/03/a-second-spring-of-
cl...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/03/a-second-spring-of-
cleaning.html) ?

~~~
enneff
When Google announced Chrome they did not have a history of writing world-
class desktop software. Yet Chrome is massively successful.

One thing that Google does better than anyone else (period) is build networks.

~~~
OGinparadise
_Yet Chrome is massively successful._

I've seen non-techie people use Chrome, none of them remembered how and why.
My guess is that tried to download something else and it as bundled, or
clicked on an advert when using Google. That might explain a large part of
success. Chrome is pretty good, but then so is Firefox and (even) IE10.

 _One thing that Google does better than anyone else (period) is build
networks._

Even if I assume that as true (surely many will contest it) somehow I suspect
that that's not why we don't have 100mbs or GB service countrywide

------
hvs
It's always nice to see a (semi-)free market driving competition and
innovation.

------
DigitalSea
Much like Firefox forced Microsoft's hand in regards to Internet Explorer it
seems as though Google have forced one of the major players hands to innovate
in the Internet and bandwidth space as well. Any outcome of this battle will
only benefit the people in the end. More choice equals a better deal for
everyone and I have no doubt this was never about money on Google's end in the
first place, merely a wakeup call to companies like AT&T and Comcast who have
stopped trying and let their networks deteriorate.

Considering Google have only spent $100 million on their impressive fibre
network thus far, AT&T have a lot of catching up to do here to meet the same
service offering Google is giving customers (no network caps, fast speeds, a
new and reliable network).

------
gonzo
AT&T proposed this back in the 90s, yes, in Austin.

Lots of trenching around town, tons of interduct.

Then the winds shifted, and they shut the project down.

------
lifeisstillgood
Back in my Demon Internet days we went through every possible way of solving
that last mile. One of the most innovative solutions, that actually got
trailed before being "canned" was to backhaul fibre through the sewage system
- it was pre existing tunnelling in every home, could be installed by any fool
and had negligible effect on "flow"

For some reason it never caught on :-)

~~~
cpeterso
That's a crazy/brilliant idea! How did the fibre exit the sewage system at the
home?

~~~
gregpilling
Sewage systems are non-pressurized gravity flow and many have cleanouts for
service. The line could exit out via the cleanout. My house has a clean out
just as the sewer line exits the foundation, and the sewer line itself is a 4"
pipe. Lots of room and easy access.

------
o0-0o
I would think this is a classic case of "Follow The Money".

What firms are HQ'd in the Austin and surrounding areas...

[http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2012/state...](http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2012/state..).
Whole Foods... Dell... I wonder what types of conversations Google & Dell have
been having?

~~~
aaronbrethorst
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_in_the_Dallas...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_in_the_Dallas–Fort_Worth_metroplex)

AT&T, for one.

~~~
ahlatimer
Dallas isn't really in the Austin area. It's a 3 hour drive.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
My reading comprehension is apparently poor today. I could've sworn the parent
comment said "Dallas," not Austin.

------
pasbesoin
100% reactionary and nearly 100% political.

In the Chicagoland area, their DSL service was simply horrible, and it
languished, until Comcast started rolling out Internet and triple-play (cable
TV, Internet, _and phone_ ).

Suddenly, AT&T's market was at material risk.

Even then, their Internet offerings remained poorly supported, if _relatively_
somewhat improved.

I suspect the primary reason for this announcement is for use in manipulating
various political entities, including Congress. Also, some public PR value,
from those who are still inclined to believe anything they might have to say.

Note that today's AT&T is really SBC. AT&T was a mostly empty shell at the
time SBC bought them up -- largely, I suspect, for the branding.

------
scarmig
Why are they announcing it the same day as Google? And in the same city, no
less? If they've had this capability all this time, what has prevented them
from offering good service to customers up until now?

~~~
dsl
From the article:

"AT&T’s ... anticipate it will be granted the same terms and conditions as
Google on issues such as geographic scope of offerings, rights of way,
permitting, state licenses and any investment incentives."

They want to make a case out of Google getting preferential treatment to build
out its network (which they are).

~~~
AnthonyMouse
It seems like there should be a pretty easy way around the claims of
favoritism: Come up with the terms (e.g. right of way and easy licenses if you
install gigabit fiber to x thousand homes with no caps and observe network
neutrality), then let companies bid on the contract, and open bidding to any
qualified organization. Google can put in a nominal bid and take it if no one
submits a competing bid, or AT&T can outbid them if they want, but then AT&T
has to pay to build the network under those terms and Google can just move on
to the next city.

------
smutticus
How much do you want to bet AT&T never builds anything? This is a classic
tactic of them to announce the development of a network and then never build
it. They often do this as a means to extract honey from regulators, but it
also works to distract consumers and municipalities. It's the equivalent of
networking FUD.

Examples: [http://www.muninetworks.org/content/atts-many-broken-
merger-...](http://www.muninetworks.org/content/atts-many-broken-merger-
promises)

And of course the biggest scam of all:
[http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070810_0026...](http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070810_002683.html)

------
nnethercote
This is duplicated infrastructure. What a waste of money and effort.
Australia's National Broadband Network seems a much better way to handle this
kind of thing.

~~~
curiousdannii
They're outside my house right now!

------
addflip
A shot across Google's bow. Google must really be scaring the legacy carriers.
Competition is great!

------
scragg
I have FTTH with AT&T Uverse yet they only offer at max 22 mbps down / 3 up at
around $60/month. Is lack of competition the only reason why AT&T doesn't
offer me more speed? I mean why would they? It's either AT&T or dial-up.

------
programminggeek
This is sort of like if Google announced they are building a 50 ft. wall
around the city of Austin, and then AT&T announces they are building a 50 ft.
wall around the wall that Google is building.

------
intopieces
Not even a hint of when this is slated to happen? Talk about 'me too'-ing.

------
bertomartin
Keep slapping 'em into shape Google. Good job. Come to NY!!

------
tibbon
So.... AT&T can actually do this if they try and have competition threatening
their ologopoly (which they and Comcast claim doesn't exist...)

------
loudin
I'll believe it when I see it. I don't think AT&T is a capable enough
institution to beat Google to the punch on this one.

------
wilhil
Who knew competition would lead to this...

------
guelo
Legally Austin is under no obligation to give AT&T the same deal.

------
ttrreeww
Yeah, and I announce intent to build 1 gigabit fiber in my home as well!

