AT&T's been fairly amusing in terms of downplaying how Google Fiber has pushed the company to compete more intensely in many markets, even if a lot of that competition is fiber to the press release. For example, when Google announced Google Fiber in Austin, for example, AT&T quickly followed suit with its "Gigapower" offering, but pretended that the timing of the announcement was coincidental.
Google Fiber shows competition works: AT&T Gigapower service is
notably cheaper in Google Fiber markets.
But speaking at an investment conference this week, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said Google Fiber has a been a good thing, at least in terms of helping make cherry picked broadband deployments fashionable again.
Those of you who've been around for a decade or so may recall that regulators and the press used to criticize ISPs for broadband deployment cherry picking, and towns used to demand uniform deployment of broadband services across a municipality. That changed in part when telcos got into the TV business, and were able to push statewide video franchise bills that often came with some notable downsides, including the elimination of many consumer protections.
While video franchise reform made cherry picking legal again, Google Fiber can be thanked for making broadband deployment cherry picking truly fashionable, notes Stephenson:
quote:
"In the past if we wanted to go into a city environment, the requirement was you build out the entire city," Stephenson explained in a keynote at the J.P. Morgan Global Technology, Media and Telecom Conference. Doing that requires a huge capital investment, one that AT&T felt it couldn't make, he noted.Google's entry into Austin, in particular, enabled AT&T to ask the city for the same terms as Google Fiber received. "Google came in and was very targeted in where they wanted to deploy fiber, and they got municipal endorsement (on that). …We said we'll take the same deal that Google got. And we got the same deal that Google got," Stephenson said."
Of course AT&T probably could have asked Austin for the same deal at any time. AT&T made sure of that when it pushed for statewide Texas franchise "reform"
in 2005 (Texas was the very first of such bills). It was only the threat of real competition that finally forced AT&T's hand.Either way, the rise in competition for ultra-fast connections has been a boon to the industry, even if only some people, in parts of some cities -- are able to get it. While gigabit lines and AT&T's Gigapower service get all the attention, the less sexy fact that AT&T is
hanging up on millions of DSL users it doesn't want to upgrade consistently gets lost in the shuffle.
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