AT&T Building Massive Fiber Network That Barely Exists (techdirt.com)

An anonymous reader writes: An article at TechDirt points out that AT&T's big fiber deployment project isn't yet adding up to much. They posted a press release last week saying how they've launched fiber internet in Los Angeles and West Palm Beach, and how they also plan to bring it to 38 other metro areas. But TechDirt notes a few parts they left out: "Nowhere does the company state when these connections will be delivered. Similarly nowhere does the company make clear that it's targeting mostly high-end housing developments where fiber is already in the ground, making costs negligible (the only way you could technically accomplish a deployment of this kind and magically have your CAPEX consistently drop). And while AT&T claims these improvements will reach 14 million residential and commercial locations, AT&T gives no timeline for this accomplishment. That means it could cherry pick a few hundred thousand University condos and housing developments per year and be wrapping up this not-so-epic fiber deployment by 2040 or so. "

Comments

Re:Headline

[jandrese]

The story is basically about how they're talking up their massive Fiber network, but have actually been cutting back on expansion for several years. It's like when politicians name bills for the opposite thing they're doing. Like the Clean Air Act that allowed more industrial pollution into the air.

Re:Headline

[gstoddart]

The press and public aren't the only ones being conned. AT&T has consistently used its phantom fiber deployment as a carrot on a stick with regulators, at one point threatening to stop making these barely-there investments unless regulators walked back net neutrality. AT&T backed off the claim when the FCC asked for hard data, but this kind of telecom theater works exceptionally well in state legislatures. Last week AT&T claimed net neutrality prevented them from innovating, and this week they're portraying themselves as the innovator of the century (even though the only actual innovation here is in misleading PR).

See, they're not building very much, but they're using it to claim how they'd be forced to stop spending money on improving their infrastructure if those pesky regulators made them follow any rules.

It's more like they're picking the low hanging fruit along the side of a road, but are claiming to be building orchards and highways.

They're dinosaurs sitting on a business model by which they keep charging more money for the same thing, while ultimately NOT investing in new infrastructure and instead acting like they deserve money for doing nothing.

What you're missing is they're not really building it. They're adding a small amount of capacity in places where it is super easy and to do it because someone already built the infrastructure, and then pretending they're some kind of cutting edge innovators of the network of the future.

So, just how much of the money they've collected and said it's for improving infrastructure has actually been used to that end, and how much has just been skimmed off as profits to ensure the stock stays high and executive bonuses keep going up?

When they don't invest in real infrastructure and adding new capacity, it's just a shell game to pretend they're not just leaving the existing stuff to rot.