AT and T announces 1 Gigabit "Paper Fiber" but reduces capital spending

[Via DSLReports] Ever since Google Fiber came on the scene, AT&T's response has been highly theatrical in nature. What AT&T would have the press and public believe is that they're engaged in a massive new deployment of fiber to the home service. What's actually happening is that AT&T is upgrading a few high-end developments where fiber was already in the ground (these users were previously capped at DSL speeds) and pretending it's a serious expansion of fixed-line broadband.

AT&T today announced that the company is "eyeing" 100 potential target cities as locations they may deploy faster 1 Gbps "Gigapower" service. According to the company's press release, this "major initiative" will target 100 "candidate cities and municipalities" across 21 metropolitan areas nationwide. Those users could then get AT&T's $70-$100 per month 1 Gbps service, currently only available in a very small portion of Austin, Texas.

The press release admits as much if you look carefully. "This expanded fiber build is not expected to impact AT&T’s capital investment plans for 2014," notes AT&T. That's what they noted last year, and will surely say the same thing next year. In fact, AT&T's been reducing their fixed-line CAPEX each year. What kind of major 1 Gbps broadband expansion doesn't hit your CAPEX? One that's either very tiny, or simply doesn't exist.

Read more »Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.