AT&T has brought its ultra-fast "U-Verse with Gigapower" gigabit broadband service to Indianapolis, Indiana. According to a company announcement the ultra-fast service is now available in single-family homes, more than 25 apartment complexes and small businesses in parts of Indianapolis, Brownsburg, Carmel, Fishers, Noblesville, Plainfield and surrounding communities. How many customers this actually covers remains unclear, as many AT&T Gigapower launches are intentionally dressed up by the company's marketing department to appear larger than they actually are.
"The AT&T GigaPower network is currently available in over 1.6 million locations across 26 of the nation’s largest metro areas. We have plans to expand the availability of ultra-fast internet speeds up to 1 gigabit per second in parts of 30 more areas – at least 56 metros in total," the company states.
Granted roughly one million of those addresses were already served with fiber years ago, AT&T simply capping those users at DSL speeds to, as the company told us in 2007, to create a "more consistent user experience." Similarly, some of these AT&T launches may consist of just a few development communities, frustrating AT&T DSL customers who call in to see if gigabit speeds are available in a "launched" market.
Prices for AT&T's gigabit service can vary from $70 per month to $130 per month depending on the level of competition in the area. In Indianapolis AT&T says it's pricing its service at around $90 per month -- likely a pre-emptive strike against Comcast's looming deployment of DOCSIS 3.1-based gigabit cable speeds.