AT&T Readies Lightspeed in North Texas

AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) won't say where its Project Lightspeed rollout will hit next. But Light Reading has uncovered some major network upgrades going on in North Texas that include adding fiber to the premises (FTTP) and fiber to the curb (FTTC) connections in the city of Frisco.

It appears North Texas is just one of 21 markets AT&T's fiber-fed access network and services will reach by the end of this year (See AT&T Shines a Light on Lightspeed.) Back in 2005, the carrier pledged it would spend some $800 million to roll out its IPTV and high-speed data services in Texas, where it has a state-issued video franchise. (See SBC Makes $800M Texas Pledge .)

With the help of independent telecom analyst Kermit Ross, principal of Millennium Marketing, Light Reading spent an afternoon pinpointing some areas in Frisco where AT&T is rehabbing its copper wires, installing new concrete pads, power pedestals, and fiber to the node (FTTN) cabinets in several neighborhoods and new construction areas that are known to be areas that will absorb the city's rapid population growth.

In the following seven photos, you can see how it only took 45 days for AT&T to add FTTN capabilities from scratch to Frisco's Heather Ridge neighborhood, a 3-year old development where home prices range from $270,000 to $350,000.

It's not hard to see why AT&T is hot for Frisco. To say the city is growing is an understatement on the order of calling Texas "roomy." The 1990 census turned up 6,138 people and by November 2005, city officials put the headcount at 81,229 residents -- a 1,220 percent jump in just 15 years.

And the city's bracing for some big years ahead, too. Its Master Plan states that when Frisco's 69 square miles is fully developed, it could house as many as 350,000 people -- and that's going to mean a lot more network upgrades around here.

Although one fiber upgrade Light Reading spotted was near a mobile home park, most of Frisco is affluent. The median home price here is $228,827 and the median household income is $81,186 -- nearly double what the U.S. median income was in 2004.

Closer to Lake Lewisville, home builder Pulte Homes is selling homesites and floorplans for a development where houses that will price at between $200,000 and $500,000. A salesman there tells Light Reading that the first occupants will move in sometime this summer -- and their homes served with fiber-to-the-premises from AT&T. He says FTTP is a big selling point, and the homebuilder has sold 45 homes in the past 45 days.

"They have made an enormous capital investment close to a full year ahead of these neighborhoods being occupied," says analyst Kermit Ross, while driving through a Sotherby Homes development, where newly-built homes were advertised as ranging in size between 2,200 to 4,300 square feet.

Of course, AT&T isn't the only telco targeting North Texas. While touting its recent launch of FiOS TV service in Rowlett and Highland Village, Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) said last week it will hire 300 more fiber technicians, sales reps, and customer service folk by midyear. The carrier says it has created nearly 1,100 jobs related to its fiber optic buildouts in North Texas since it began deploying fiber here. No word on how many of those new hires are lobbyists. (See Telcos Flog Video Franchising.)

Near Frisco, AT&T is employing salespeople called "SmartMoves" consultants at salaries between $77,200 and $104,400 a year. These employees "negotiate SmartMoves contracts to completion with developers in order to market voice, data and video services in these new FTTP developments," according to one help-wanted ad circulated locally here. The ad claims that SmartMoves is "the sole sales force" for FTTP technology in residential developments.

AT&T's local SmartMoves representatives say they're not allowed to discuss the carrier's relationship with Pulte. They also won't say what is called for in a "SmartMoves" contract.

The carrier, citing competitive reasons, says it hasn't and won't announce what markets it is going into with Project Lightspeed. "We've been conditioning our lines and scaling the network for a while now. We'll begin to scale the service during the middle part of this year," says AT&T spokesman Wes Warnock.

One thing that is evident here is Lightspeed isn't sneaking up on anyone. The evidence that upgrades are happening is all over the place. And that construction is turning heads.

"AT&T is a juggernaut and they will roll this service out," explains analyst Kermit Ross. "It may be a little later than they've said in their public utterances, but they will get it done."

— Phil Harvey, News Editor, Light Reading