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AT&T has announced expansion plans for its high-speed GigaPower Internet service to Cupertino, Calif., and Jacksonville, Fla., but details are limited.
Not content to rest on its gigabit laurels, AT&T announced plans this week to expand its GigaPower service to two more key markets -- Jacksonville, Fla., and Cupertino, Calif.
Using an all-fiber network, AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) will bring symmetrical speeds "up to 1 gigabit per second" to these new cities along with TV services for both consumers and small businesses. So far, the telecom company has launched GigaPower in the Texas markets of Austin, Dallas and Fort Worth. It has also announced plans to bring GigaPower to nine other markets mainly in the Southeast and Texas, namely Charlotte, Greensboro, Houston, Miami, Nashville, Overland Park, Kan., Raleigh-Durham, San Antonio and Winston-Salem.
AT&T first unveiled its GigaPower initiative in April, promising to bring high-speed fiber networks to as many as 100 cities and municipalities around the country. However, details for many of the announced deployments are still vague, with exact service details still undetermined. For Cupertino, the latest market on AT&T's list, the launch press release says that availability and pricing will be announced at a later date, with "initial availability limited to select areas." (See AT&T Turns Up Gig Heat in 21 New Metros.)
Get the latest updates on the Gigabit Cities push by visiting Light Reading's broadband/FTTx content channel.
DSLReports has also noted previously that while the AT&T news releases make for good press, there are clearly limits to how far AT&T plans to go with GigaPower. When it announced the new initiative, AT&T specifically stated that "this expanded fiber build is not expected to impact AT&T's capital investment plans for 2014." That suggests that, at least for this year, actual GigaPower deployments will be minimal.
If AT&T's planned merger with DirecTV Group Inc. (NYSE: DTV) is approved, the company has promised to expand its GigaPower network to an "additional 2 million customer locations." Currently, through its U-verse service, AT&T has 11.5 million Internet customers. (See U-verse Growth Slips But Still Strong .)
— Mari Silbey, special to Light Reading
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