As we turn the corner on the pandemic, and drive toward economic recovery, delivering broadband connectivity to every home and every farm, in every city and town, large and small, has become a national priority. Billions of dollars have already been directed to broadband infrastructure and affordability in stimulus legislation, and we anticipate a significant commitment to broadband deployment in the upcoming Biden infrastructure bill. But all of this has raised two – and I think separate – fundamental questions.
First, from a policy perspective, how should “broadband” be defined to determine who is considered unserved? Accurately defining unserved locations is essential to efficiently targeting subsidy dollars to those areas most in need of connectivity, including sparsely populated areas where there are currently no fixed broadband solutions at all. Second, from an allocation perspective, what broadband solutions should be preferred as dollars are allocated?
Let’s turn first to the definitional problem. The pandemic has broadened the consensus opinion that it’s time to revisit the FCC’s current broadband definition of 25/3 Mbps. To be clear, service at that speed is sufficient to support zoom working and remote learning. According to Zoom’s website, a group call using high quality video requires speeds of 1 Mbps up / 600 kbps down.
But we know zooming isn’t the only thing users have been doing during quarantine and most homes now need to support multiple streams. Sandvine reports that video, gaming and social media together consumed 80% of total network capacity during 2020, with Netflix alone accounting for 11% of global traffic. That traffic profile demands significant download performance. For example, Netflix recommends speeds of at least 5Mbps down for HD video streaming, and 25Mbps down to stream in 4K for optimum quality viewing.
When zooming, streaming and tweeting is combined in an average household of four, it’s easy to conclude that download speeds must increase. Notably, the results of the recent FCC Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) auction tilted toward players bidding in the 100/20 Mbps or better service tiers, with gigabit bids winning approximately 85% of all locations.
What is less clear is whether we need to increase upload speeds to the same level as download speeds for the purpose of defining “unserved” areas. A definition built on symmetrical speeds could dramatically expand the locations deemed “unserved”, leading to some areas being unnecessarily overbuilt while leaving fewer dollars to support areas in greater need, which tend to be rural.
Turning to the second question, there are stronger arguments that any distribution model should prefer higher-speed services when subsidy dollars are allocated. Fiber is the most “future-proof” approach, but it is commonly accepted that it is not practical to assume fiber can or should serve every household in rural America. Some flexibility must be preserved, particularly for the next generation of fixed wireless technologies likely to be deployed in the recently auctioned C-Band that will easily deliver performance at 100 Mbps down. But wireless networks are not built to deliver symmetrical speeds, so any mandate around symmetrical performance could undermine delivery of these efficient and robust technology solutions in hard to serve areas of the country.
There are additional policy implications in considering both questions. First, there would be significant additional cost to deploy fiber to virtually every home and small business in the country, when at present there is no compelling evidence that those expenditures are justified over the service quality of a 50/10 or 100/20 Mbps product.
Second, as noted above, adopting a symmetrical standard could result in overbuilding existing services today, including existing asymmetrical services that are currently meeting modern connectivity needs. My home internet connection delivers service at 300 Mbps down but only 20 Mbps up, yet it is a service that has supported my household reliably throughout the last year. Overbuilding such solutions would needlessly devalue private investment and waste broadband-directed dollars.
Finally, there is the consumer cost challenge. As we have previously noted, the FCC’s benchmark price for a 100/20 Mbps service is over $100. It’s even higher for a fiber-fed gigabit service. Even the increased Emergency Broadband Fund $50 subsidy will deliver a low-income household less than half of the support it would need to fund such a high-speed service. As higher speed networks get deployed to rural America, the current availability challenge could easily become an affordability one.
While the pandemic has redefined connectivity demands, those demands are not uniform, and the economics of serving every household in the country will require reliance on multiple technology solutions. Policymakers seeking to re-define modern broadband speeds should take into consideration technological capabilities, economic considerations, geographic characteristics and affordability concerns. Getting the definition right is critical to ensuring that broadband dollars are effectively targeted to where they are needed most.
Separate from the definitional result, any competitive bidding framework for allocating dollars can be structured to favor fiber-based solutions where they are available. But the model must be flexible enough to allow for other solutions where deployment of fiber is not economical or geographically practical.
We share the goals of those who want a durable approach to the persistent digital divide. But good policy must be measured against the objective of widely available broadband connectivity with sustainable affordability support for low-income households. If not done correctly, and if dollars are not carefully targeted, the challenges of the digital divide will continue to persist.
I live in Wyoming and I have been clamoring for gigabit fiber for years. Fortunately there is a local fiber provider that serves my rural county that will be providing symmetric gigabit to my office in the next two months. $100/mo too.
AT&T is out of touch if they think rural communities don’t need fiber. This is just a city dweller trying to hold rural communities back!
You are high on paint fumes from you new shiny office. AT&T’s refusal to acknowledge and be leader in Internet infrastructure and instead remain steadfast in your greedy hording of funds for shareholders stifles your ability think critically. Just give your current and future customers what they demand: broadband Internet connections at market speeds. Not only is this equitable, but necessary in today’s modern Internet-connected society. Shame on you, your industry cohorts, your co-monopolies and your lobbyists. Shame on you. Period. You are just posturing to keep everything the way it is because it benefits YOUR BOTTOM line only. Stop pretending you are defending customers, you are lying and insulting our collective intelligence. Good grief, Starlink can’t come soon enough!
If the bozos at AT&T were in charge of electricity, gas, and water utilities, folks in rural areas of the country would still be reading by candlelight, heating their homes with fireplaces, and hauling their laundry down to the river.
Considering AT&T’s reluctance to upgrade most rural areas to even meet the FCC 25/3 broadband definition, I’m not sure what is the concern. AT&T has no interest in spending money to upgrade their legacy infrastructure in any meaningful way for their customers. I look forward to the next article where it is explained why my 24Mbps DSL service has a 1TB cap and costs more than an AT&T symmetrical gigabit fiber connection without a data cap available within a different city in the same state. I have no expectation of AT&T improving service at my home and I live in a town with a population of 40,000+. This post just rings as hollow words to a frustrated customer who is looking forward to the day that LEO satellite internet constellations finally go fully operational.
Is this an early April Fools joke? Basically you want to make sure that bad decisions you’ve made to keep a monopoly hold on large swathes of the USA aren’t rendered obsolete by technology. Instead the public should continue to pay outrageous monthly fees to protect your monopoly. I can’t believe that an intelligent person could have written something so biased.
If this isn’t the most archaic & 19th century stance then I don’t know what is. This kind of backwards thinking is why the US is so far behind the rest of developed democratic countries around the world including most of Europe. There is no way that 10 mbps upload speeds will ever keep up with the rest of the world, as time marches on, & what future needs will require. We need to be looking for faster upload speeds as well as download speeds, as we move into the technology future. Anything less is like saying that putting a satellite up to an orbit of 200 miles will always be good enough.
I have had AT&T for quite some time now, and if this is what the future of AT&T looks like, then it is time for us to look into other companies to do business with.
I don’t care if you are looking at rural or urban, 10 mbps is never going to cut it moving forward.
AT&T might want to limit upload speeds if for some reason it would generate more revenue or lesser expense. Bottom line.
This shows stunning ignorance and an infuriating lack of respect to the people who feed you.
every one already said it more eloquantly than me … but it is hilarious that someone with vp title at att can think that slow internet is the way forward. we see what you’re doing. you’ve abandonded investemnt in your own slower networks and you want to see the gov’t pick up your lack of initiative and pay you to maintain these customers. we’ve read the stories of how you let dsl plant go into disrepair and sell ever slower service. we see you att. it’s so sad that a so-called vp who probably has the fastest internet at her house thinks rural people don’t ‘need’ fast internet. seriously, hand your vp badge to some internet teen. they are have more up to date ideas on internet standards than you do.
Let’s forget about all of the potential innovation and opportunity currently being limited by the lack of upload speeds across the country. It’s an embarresment globally that we host a majority of the internet and yet most of the country can’t get more then 10mbps up for <100$ outside of existing fiber offerings. Also what about the proxy infrastructure improvements to be had like upgrading your own wireless offering. Didn't we already pay for much of your existing infrastructure? I hope the board removes you. I encourage investors to vote with their dollars and pull out.
I condemn these views thoroughly and reject any notion that you are scrupulous. Please resign from your post immediately.
Makes me want to cancel my gigabit att connection. 10mbps upload.. that would hardly handle a few zoom calls… What a joke.. I think y’all should hire someone who does not count beans but wants to deliver best internet
I love this. This is free advertising for Starlink.
Unfortunately you are way out of touch with reality. Att should be leading the way with fiber through out the country.
A family cannot work and be entertained on a poor connection like you want. 25/3 is horrendous.
Wake up or get left behind like the old pots lines you abandoned.
This memo is ridiculous. You have no idea what a pain it is to live, work, go to virtual school & virtual church in rural America with only one or two lousy options for internet service. SkyLink is going to come along eventually and eat your lunch; then you will have far fewer internet customers than. you do now.
Obviously AT&T has totally lost it’s way. I think I will cancel my DirecTv and My AT&T accounts as I will not pay for their lobbying.
You need to resign. This is the most ridiculous and outrageous article I have ever read. This is why AT&T is failing.
I am not sure what you have been smoking, but it’s good stuff. The reason I left ATT for xfinity was that ATT charged twice the price for half the speed. You better move into the 21st century soon, or you will go out of business. Everyone in this country wants faster upload and download speeds. 100mbit upload is the minimum acceptable, not the standard. And yes we know internet suppliers are keeping the price artificially high, so don’t try and tell us it’s too expensive. It won’t even be too long until we get wireless approaching gigabit, so cut the crap about wired internet being acceptable at 25/3.
So… When do you plan on offering this so-called satisfactory 10 mbps service to us rural folks? I’m stuck with a grandfathered-in AT&T cell plan as the ONLY “broadband” internet available to me at any price. I live less than 5 miles outside a city with a full array of choices, yet I have no real broadband options. On YOUR network, my average download speed this summer was less than 1.0 mbps down. And you want to BLOCK any company from running fiber to me?
In all seriousness… How do you sleep at night?
The consumer costs section essentially says it all. What’s the point if rural consumers can’t afford it? That’s just an unbelievable section to me. This entire post is incredibly ignorant and short sighted. As 5G services creep in, Elon Musk, MSFT, and Google bring satellite internet, and FTTH, to justify an AT&T lack of motivation to compete in these spaces is simply laughable at best. I’m a DirecTV consumer, and was praying for AT&T to provide a viable consumer discount bundle package. Never did. I’m still with Verizon, and AT&T lost 32 Billion dollars on the DTV deal due to mass cord cutting. I can’t imagine why. Great job AT&T Executive team. I never imagined that I’d be reading someone from AT&T’s Executive team claiming there’s no point in updating an ancient DSLAM infrastructure because people can’t afford it. AT&T flattened rates over the years forcing rural consumers to foot the bill for substandard services. Next blog: Corporate profits are over rated, so why try.
Elon musk is coming to eat your lunch with starlink.
sorry to say but you are hella wrong about these speeds as the world progress you falter at it and refuse to improve quality and this is why you will fail to succeed and most likely lose more customers and fall as of company, on top of this you charge way too much for internet, $120+ for internet 10 and unlimited and yet you can’t even deliver it
Sorry, but 10mbps up would have been good 15 years ago.
Its 2021. We’re behind in consumer internet.
Time to pony up and get us up to snuff.
At&t wants to be left in the past? Okay, bye!
Just because you offer a speed doesn’t mean that is the guaranteed speed at the client. 25/3 means you’ll likely get 20 down. And 3mbps upload speed? Come on now. Just because you aren’t directly interacting with an FTP server doesn’t mean you aren’t uploading information when you interact with an app or service. Many people are moving to cloud-based backup services. Good luck uploading 100gb of files before the end of the year. Or, for that matter, good luck uploading more than an image or two to your favorite social media site in under a minute.
You’re completely out of touch if you think these speeds are acceptable. You’ve had the government funds to allocate to these things and you squandered them. 100/100 is a *bare minimum* for a respectable service in 2021. And people in rural communities don’t deserve the shaft because it costs more to operate a node that doesn’t serve at full capacity.
But, hey, line those pockets while offering the bare minimum.
Hey Joan! Change you own internet service to your “suggested speeds” for a month and circle back with us on how that works for you.
You are out of touch with reality or too used to making a buck delivering low quality service through monopolies enforced at the county/local government level.
Yes, it comes down to cost & profitability.
First, lowering the bar on performance also lowers the bar on pragmatic utility & usability. I see that Ms. Marsh says:
“My home internet connection delivers service at 300 Mbps down but only 20 Mbps up…”
Irrelevant. Go actually live with using 10/3 for a meaningful amount of time (6+ months) before claiming adequacy. Yes, its “Eat Your Own Dogfood”.
Second, low performance lowers the bar on product value.
Frankly, 10/3 isn’t worth more than $10/month (after all fees & taxes). So regulations should cap prices: absolutely no more than $1 per Mbit.
Third, on the (a)symmetrical debate … bull. We all know its just strategic staging for wireless after FTTH is abandoned.
The performance key here remains the minimum & ratio: the minimum upload should be 5+ and 10%+ of download – – because otherwise, the product is self-gimped.
Finally, “oh, but the rurals!” & also restricting competitors?
No. That’s not Capitalism.
I live in a rural community in California. Race Communications is providing me symmetric gigabit fiber internet with a land-line for $83 a month after taxes and fees. As far as I can tell they’re not going bankrupt.
Quit acting like the customers are Oliver Twist asking for more, otherwise companies like Race and Spacex’s Starlink are going to run you out of business.
To summarize, sell your att stock.
You know…
Things like netflix used to be impossible on the internet. A household connection didn’t have anywhere near the bandwidth available.
At the time lots of people made the argument that connection speeds were enough becuase the internet was mostly text and small pictures.
Streaming services never could have existed under dialup connections.
Yet, we didn’t go “you know if we had faster internet we could have Netflix”.
No, the technology ce first and then we worked on how to use it.
Now, no one woild claim that a dialup connection is sufficient.
We’re at that point again. A new internet awaits us with services that we can’t yet dream of or that have bandwitdh limited barriers. We have new ideas that need another reduction in average latency.
However, here you are arguing that everything is fine as is and you’re doing it so that you can milk just a little bit more money out of people.
That’s despicable.
You have the opportunity to help push us forward but won’t.
There is no such thing as “overbuilt” in regards to internet speed. The faster the speed you have today simply buys you more time before it’s irrelevant.
I’m saddened at this post by ATT. Fiber is essential whether it’s in metro or rural. ATT quit adding new DSL customers in our area and there are no known alternatives. Thanks for painting a clear picture of your public policy, it shows your customers you value padding your pocket rather than investing in the future to expand your fiber network.
We cant let the hicks and hillbillies upload faster than 1 mbps. They dont need it! What are they gonna use it for, honestly? YouTube videos on how to fry up a possum or how to pick up your cousin? At&t is right to punish these freaks.
I think at&t should stick to their guns: if you want to use the internet move to a city with comcast. Otherwise, take what you get and cry about it. Thanks at&t!
My internet is too fast said no one ever.
I live in one of those rural areas where some people and businesses have the slow internet. It prevents efficient use of of tools and the ability to fully engage in activities online.
Sure you can log on to Zoom, but you’re the robot person whose words get stretched out and basically slows the meeting down.
I think your family oughta try being a modern household on the current federal standard.
Because the minute these low speed communities have access to higher speeds from another provider, they’re gone.
Just want to plus one to the comment below and add that if it were up to AT&T every engineer working from home would be unemployed based on what I read because I wouldn’t have enough bandwidth to hop on a video conference and do other things.
“If the bozos at AT&T were in charge of electricity, gas, and water utilities, folks in rural areas of the country would still be reading by candlelight, heating their homes with fireplaces, and hauling their laundry down to the river.“
Come live in my “unserved area” for a week with our speeds. You destroyed DirecTV, you’ve mismanaged your networks into the ground, you’re losing hundreds of customers a day to T-Mobile. Now you want to make policy? Allowing this would be like re-electing King Cheeto.
You took millions/billions in money for the government years ago – money that was provided to expand broadband. Did that happen?
Small, rinky dink community broadband services that lack any sort of ability to benefit from scale manage to charge competitive prices. Your assertions on speed and price are easily disproven.
Your home connection of 300/20 – I’m sure it’s reliable for you. What do you use it for? Email and asking Alexa about the weather?
I bet everyone reading this $10 that AT&T magically changes their tune whenever Elon Musk gets his affordable satellite broadband going.
I can’t wait until you change your tune when the pressure of competition forces you to abandon the luddite lifestyle and actually do things like innovate and…y’know…compete!
Quite honestly, if AT&T could get away with taking your money and providing you no service whatsoever, they would do that. But that is not the surprising part.
One of the things that raises my concern is the word “overbuild”. That is when major ISP get together and split up areas they service with their fast services, reducing their expansions in other geographical areas, leaving that to other providers. That is not how free market works. That is not what Ajit Pai promised the people when he removed all neutrality regulations from ISPs. I hope he rots in hell.
Mrs. Marsh is claiming that her 300/25 internet was supporting her family’s needs for years. Yeah, I would believe that. But this year, we were all locked up with a lot of video calls and conferences going on, which really relies on that upload speed just as much as download. And even though I’m neither in a rural nor a metropolitan area and have the AT&T Fiber 300. Frequently I don’t even get 10Mbits. AT&T is corrupt to the core
absolutely propitious and idiotic. 10mb upload speed doesn’t even cover what is needed for a zoom call. Worried about over building infrastructure is code for I’m worried about my 7 figure Executive AT&T bonus next year. Trickle down economics at work and why America is crumbling. Customers always get stuck with high price leftovers. Crazy thing is AT&T is paying money to lobby this capitol hill. Enjoy peasants
This woman is out of touch with reality. If you feel that the speed is enough then you live with it. I am in the real world and you are far from it.
Thank you for showing us that AT&T is a company without a vision for the future.
This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. I am a current ATT customer on 18 mbps service in a rural county. You cannot have a Teams or Zoom call and leave video on, you can only stream one device and playing video games is out of the question. Agree with many of the previous comments that this is the most archaic and idiotic view ever. Thanks to companies like Starlink who at least have a vision for the future.
Ma’am, I have no service at all due to your company’s refusal to fulfill the promise your company made to the government to supply fiber to my rural community. Your company has then lied to the FCC stating that your company services my address. Instead of making facile lies, take responsibility and roll fiber. Tell the shareholders your company is a communication company. Either that, return the taxpayer money with interest so another company can step up and supply service to areas underserved by your company.
You are so horribly out of touch with reality. 3mbps upload was passable a decade ago, and is laughable now. With the increasing popularity of platforms like Twitch, it’s clear that more and more people are streaming (uploading) content. Combine that with the current increasing use of video conferenceing. Using your quoted requirement of 1mbps upload, then a 3 person household, all on zoom calls at the same time will quickly saturate a pathetic 3mbps upload allocation.
You greedy ISPs continually claim that it’s far too expensive to bring your infrastructure into the 21st century, all the while your execs are rolling in cash. The US effectively invented the Internet, yet the US lags behind much of the developed world with regards average speeds and price-per-value/bandwidth
Adding onto my previous comment…
Furthermore, just because most households still download more than upload, it does not mean upload doesn’t matter. I remember back when I had the unfortunate circumstance of being stuck with an asymmetric connection and seeing my download suffer because my upload bandwidth couldn’t send the ACKs back fast enough.
Asymmetric bandwidth is so 20th century.
Now AT&T knows exactly why I will never choose their service. Uploads should be at a absolute minimum of say 25, but preferably 50 to 100. I will never use a service that offers below that tier. Who is AT&T??? A dinosaur company out of touch with reality.
Joan,
I’ve been in the industry of telecommunications for over 40 years. Upstream and Downstream should be exactly the same. This 100/10 split you think is the best option for people (10% upstream from the downstream) is absolutely preposterous. Me and others in the field know that companies like yourself do this on purpose and it’s in order to make extra money.
Also, saying that rural areas only need wireless and “VDSL” is another preposterous statement. I’m surprised you are VP at AT&T.. no wait, i’m not surprised, again, another money grubbing attempt to extort money from your customer base. Which is the reason why your company will continue to take monetary hits, as you make these false claims. Where I live, AT&T is not even close to an option, but thank GOODNESS, an internet company that is family owned just installed a fiber line down the road. Sure, Fiber’s initial cost is expensive, but in terms of long term investment, it’s absolutely the best money generating machine
If you think this is an acceptable stance for the 21st century, you’re truly out of touch with reality.
Reading these comments, and I tell ya, I’d sell a body organ to get even 10 mbps consistently. AT&T can’t even provide me that. 100 mbps seems like something that’s 100 years away. C’mon, AT&T, can you get me at least 10 mbps d/l speeds?
What a cop out ATT all because you don’t want to spend the money to improve your failing and broken infrastructure. You should be ashamed of yourself. Get competitive or other companies will take your place. Extremely and unacceptable corporate greed.
Isn’t good policy about creating a scalable solution?
I thought data shows that a patchwork of technologies increase the cost to build, maintain, and upgrade infrastructure.
If the objection is the high cost or rural installations, why don’t we cut out AT&T all together.
What if the government relied on Google fiber for urban and suburban areas and then SpaceX’s starlink to fill in the gaps?
The American people allow a capitalist society to operate because the value proposition is that corporations can serve the public’s needs better than alternative models.
Any private company willing to hamstring America’s future for profits should be dissolved as this selfish behavior is antithetical to the value proposition of capitalism.
I hope the executives of today’s infrastructure companies understand that they are personally responsible for strangling America’s future under the guise of “more choices”
10Mbps is acceptable for majority of people? Please tell me you have that as your speed and never complain. Preferably 10/1 just so you can understand what you’re asking for. Denying rural areas and smaller towns access to critical infrastructure such as fast internet (at LEAST 100Mbps) is denying these areas economic growth, limiting their industries and showing how greedy you truly are as a company. It’s time for the FCC to examine how ISPs operate and what constitutes a monopoly.
I have not read the comments, but I suspect I’m about to echo a lot of people.
The problem with this blog post is that it assumes all internet users are “consumers”, rather than understanding the potential for work-at-home content creators, designers, and all kinds of other jobs. ATT appears to only be concerned about itself and not it’s customers, who would be substantially helped by fiber.
I would bet my entire net worth swapped with yours, that not only do you have GB internet, but that you also have no idea what an industry standard is today, or how slow 10 Mbps is. You do know the difference between 10 MBps and 10 Mbps right? You do know that one has division involved? And by the way, since you like speaking about things I don’t think you understand, you do realize thats not a guaranteed number right? You do know the soul sucking ISP’s like you and Charter and Comcast can’t ‘promise’ those speeds and its ‘up to’ 10 Mbps?
By the way, it’s not ‘Overbuilding’ it’s called competition and if I had it my way I’d ensure a company with a quarterly profit margin of 45.7 BILLION dollars, would be FORCED to wire a connection to EVERY. SINGLE. HOME. IN AMERICA. And if your company failed because of it, well then you weren’t a good company and the competition was better.
Companies like these hold our country. It’s time to look to the future. Your speeds have never been sufficient and most of the people I know that have your service ( at any price point) say that its nowhere near the price. You guys are a cancer for this country and it’s time we go get surgery to remove the cancer.
This seems a bit ridiculous where “overbuilding” means 1 provider. Competition is non-existent (don’t get me started on 5G promises or what marketing 5G versus what is really 4G LTE or Advanced LTE). Additionally rural communities are literally not served. I.e. I’m getting a co-op to build fiber to our community who is further away than AT&& who has fiber literally across the street. The statement “would needlessly devalue private investment and waste broadband-directed dollars.” is rephrensible when AT&T and Verizon never truly met their needs a competitiion was not present and do we really want to be behind China and other nations when we get 8K streaming, AI applications at home, 50+ IOT devices, etc.? This is not even referencing the proper use cases that “normal” users much less “power users” like myself need (not to nice to have). Lastly Work-From-Home anyone?
Spoken like a monopoly in a single provider area
If Joan thinks 10 Mbps upload is good enough for everyone, then let her be the first to install it at her house, and let her live with “how wonderful it will be” and “how honored she should feel to have even that”. I guarantee she’d be crying after a day or two.
Lead by example, Joan…. Let’s see it…waiting…still waiting…
Maybe you should stop paying your CEO $20M a year for losing money, while failing to deliver on ALREADY PROMISED broadband for which you took a FEDERAL HANDOUT OF $428M.
This archaic thinking is what has the US years behind Europe. This is also the reason I believe the internet now needs to be a utility and not on the hands of private companies. Wake up to the digital age Joan.
I’m not sure where you guys are getting the idea that a zoom call will run on 1 megabit up and 600 *kilobits* down. Speeds that low are notorious for having high latency as you strain the available bandwidth.
Rural communities definitely need better internet, it’s one of the reasons I ended up moving almost 1000 miles from my parents home and have to put up with paying over a grand every month for rent and utils for a 600sqft 1 bedroom apartment.
Fiber can be used in Initial deployments to get faster connectivity to the more populated areas of rural communities and then subdivided into lower speed cable packages (definitely well over 100mbit down and 10+mbit up) to those who have only had access to awful high latency and low data cap satellite services.
Wow. Just wow. I have two kids at home doing remote learning. I work from home. I have a toddler that watches Cocomelon on YouTube. The most bandwidth in our rural home we can get is 10 megabits with a 19 ms ping time. It’s NOT ENOUGH.
You are seriously out of touch with the rural consumer base.
I wonder what the phone companies stance was when DSL became a thing and costly upgrades were needed. If AT&T maintains this perspective they will become inconsequential. There is a large business a few miles from me who is relying on 6 ISDN lines just to get a decent internet speed. The copper is rotting and AT&T refuses to fix it.
AT&T will push that digital divide further apart.
I’m disappointed by this stance from AT&T. I live in a college town just outside of Kansas City (RCJH) and have struggled with poor internet service for years. I’m currently an AT&T U-Verse customer on their Internet 18 plan which is up to 18 Mbps download speeds and up to 1.5 Mbps upload speeds. I’ve complained for years, as someone working in the tech industry that I really need better upload speeds, yet, this is the best plan AT&T offers at my house in the middle of town. While just down the road has Google Fiber.
What really irks me about this numerous times Joan states that 100/20 or 50/10 should be sufficient for most people. Hello….I’m with AT&T and I’m capped currently at 18/1.5, that’s 36% of the 50 Mbps download speed and 15% of the upload speed. At this point I’d be happy with 50/10 because this 18/1.5 network is killing me. With a family of 6, 1 telecommuting adult and 4 online schools, this network is struggling hard.
AT&T, put up or shut up.
Driven by ideology and pure greed and no vision.
Stuck at 55 in terms of broadband future.
Happy to take money and provide slow poor services.
Well done!
Talk about rip off.
This is hilarious! Definitely not what you tell people when you’re using fiber to compete with cable Internet providers and not what you say when you’re trying to get families with uverse to move towards gigabyte speeds. Getting fiber to everyone will help us achieve needed speeds well into the future and future proof American infrastructure. Hopefully they’ll classify Internet as a utility and bring back Net Neutrality. The area of Atlanta I live in is majority black and there’s no fiber here unlike other areas. I grew up in rural Appalachia where there’s no fiber there either. However when I lived in Pittsburgh and other parts of Atlanta, I could get fiber and it was cheap. Marginalized people deserve the same affordable, symmetrical, highspeed Internet you’ll gladly build and market as superior in wealthier/whiter areas.
Please retract this statement, rethink your stance, and start lobbying on the side of those with need.
AT&T should at least offer service in all areas before thinking it has the authority to speak on this subject. You don’t have data usage statistics for rural areas because rural areas don’t have the connectivity for you to study. I live in an area with no options and have to make due with a cellular hot spot. I need far more than zoom and office products in order to do my job. I need this while the rest of my family needs access to complete their online work/school / entertainment.
Get real data then come back with an informed opinion.
Limit you C level staff to rural internet speeds.
You’re better off leaving the home market honestly. I would’ve formed an ISP in rural area a decade ago, if I didn’t have to worry about y’all suing every small ISP.
AT&T has enjoyed subsidies without expanding broadband, and now it looks like they will either be forced to make good on their promise or lose the subsidies.
I’m in rural KS and a local fiber company just hooked me up to gigabit service for $70/mo.; about $10 more than AT&T was charging me for 10Mbps DSL (their fastest speed offering in my area).
AT&T is a joke of a company. I’ve never seen such incompetence in my life. Living in a semi-rural area, I would be happy with 24/2 on a bonded pair, if it worked. I’ve had literally hundreds of AT&T techs come out to fix my connection problems, wherein the modem loses sync and takes down internet services as well as their stupid VOIP phone service. I’ve actually had a couple of techs plead with me to not make them go through the motions of “fixing” my issue because they know it just makes them look foolish. I don’t understand why they can’t keep 2 pairs connected for about 1/4 mile (to the CO). I’ve wasted three years on this crap. If I had another option I’d throw everything in my house with ATT on it in a bonfire in my yard (including cell phone and Directv). What a pathetic company. I’ve been a customer for 50 years and at this point I just want them to go away.
As a member of a rural community let me first say you have no idea what you are talking about. Not only do I live in a rural area I am also an IT Professional. I deal with issues remotely using remote services as well as having to upload large data sets. Some of us live in rural areas to get away from the cities. Just because you don’t need something doesn’t mean a large section of the US doesn’t.
Joan,
I would like to invite you to the rural area of Kansas where our farm is so you can see first hand the challanges of fast internet. I know AT&T has an interest in rural broadband because I worked with an AT&T team to get the Direct TV/AT&T merger through when was with an ag trade association. The promise was amazing broadband for rural areas but that has yet to happen.
So please accept my invite and come to our farm and see how amazng it is to have 10mbs internet.
I live less than 20 miles from Atlanta and the fastest speed I can get is 6Mb/.6Mb. I am a programmer, and at&t is severely limiting my ability to work from home with these types of policies. While the area I’m in is not very densely populated it is far from sparse. I am less than 1/4 mile from a major state highway and you refuse to update the overhead telephone lines that have been here since I built the house 23 years ago.
ISPs love charging us for first rate internet while providing third work infrastructure and service. Color me shocked.