AT&T eyes 100 "candidate cities" for gigabit broad
Post# of 17650
•AT&T (T) has named 100 cities in 21 metro areas as candidates for launching its 1Gbps U-Verse GigaPower service. The metro areas include L.A., Chicago, San Francisco, San Jose, Atlanta, Houston, Kansas City, and San Diego.
•No details on the number of homes/businesses AT&T is looking to connect in particular markets. The company has already launched GigaPower in Austin (speeds are limited to 300Mbps for now) ahead of Google Fiber's local arrival, and announced plans to launch in Dallas, Raleigh-Durham, and Winston-Salem.
•In Austin at least, GigaPower is priced on par with Google Fiber ($70/month). CNET observes 14 of AT&T's markets overlap (perhaps not coincidentally) with ones where Google offers or is thinking of offering Fiber.
•AT&T's announcement comes less than a month after a report stating Google is looking to offer mobile services in Fiber markets on an MVNO basis. It also comes during a year for which AT&T has set a conservative capex budget of $21B (down $200M Y/Y).
•Q1 results are due tomorrow afternoon.
Seeking Alpha
......interesting how things play out on multiple levels and different directions
Filings would be nice