AT&T announced yesterday that it was looking to extend its “ultra fast” U-Verse with GigaPower fiber Internet service, which is currently available in Austin, Texas, to a potential total of 25 major metro areas, delivering speeds of “up to 1 Gbps.” When reached for comment, an AT&T spokesman emphasized that the company has no solid plans currently to build out gigabit fiber in all of these cities, but that the company is looking at the business case for all of them.
Still, there is enough overlap with the stated plans of a search giant that has recently been building out its own fiber network to raise a tantalizing question: Is it possible that a few lucky cities (including Nashville, Tenn.; Raleigh-Durham, N.C.; Atlanta, and San Jose, Calif., among others) will have a choice of gigabit fiber services? Currently, Google Fiber gigabit service is available in Provo, Utah, and Kansas City, Kan., and Kansas City, Mo.
Check our telecom buying guide and Ratings.
AT&T is currently offering 300-mbps service in Austin, Texas, with plans to upgrade that service to gigabit fiber later this year. In the cities in which these companies currently operate, the cost for service is similar. Google charges $70 per month for gigabit Internet service, and $120 for Internet and TV (the company also offers lower-speed Internet service free after a setup fee). In Austin, AT&T charges $70 per month for 300 mbps service that the company plans to upgrade to gigabit service at no additional cost by the end of the year, and $120 for Internet and TV (although its worth noting that AT&T has a data cap of 1 terabyte per month).
Nevertheless, in an industry that is almost defined by its lack of competition, the idea of Google and AT&T duking it out to offer super-fast, relatively affordable service to consumers is almost too good to be true.
Here is a full list of AT&T’s proposed cities. And this is the full list of Google’s proposed metro areas.
—Glenn Derene
Consumer Reports has no relationship with any advertisers or sponsors on this website. Copyright © 2006-2014 Consumers Union of U.S.
