AT&T to Expand U-Verse Gigapower(1Gb Fiber) to 38 More Metro Areas

[ChrisxIxCross]

Supposedly the Home service data cap is 1TB, personally if this was available to me I'd be on the Business service and would not have a cap.

 

1TB is quite a bit, better than Comcrap's 300GB limit, but it's still a limit, which sucks.

Weird that some people have a cap of 300gb, I recently called them about what my cap is when my internet was running slow and they said we get 750gb.

[ChrisxIxCross]

I've currently been working in an ATT Uverse Garage for almost 3 years now and I can say that dont get your hopes up unless you're moving into a new house or new sub division in these areas. ATT has zero plan to lay down fiber and dig in old neighborhoods, only in new ones. For example I live within a mile and half of people that have Uverse service when the best thing I can get from them is DSL. Unfortunately big companies like ATT are going to cut and save money when and whenever they can. Its why they invested 50 BILLION dollars into satellite TV. So they can push that and not have to worry about expanding their infrastructure.

[Burusutazu]

Augusta? Really? So Atlanta doesn't exist I presume?

Atlanta already has planned fiber networks by both Google and Comcast. It makes perfect sense to avoid an area with a lot of competition for now.

[BroliviaWilde]

Earlier this year At&t sent one of their rep's going door to door in my nieghborhood trying to get people to sign up for riber(DFW area, near the football stadium).  And at first I was interested since it would be a bit better than what I have now, and I stayed interested until I asked the guy what the data cap is for this fiber connection.  I started to laugh a little as the guy started to squirm, sure seemed like no one thought to ask him that before  He then started to talk about how he and his rather large family practically stay on netflix and gaming all day everyday and somehow never manage to go over the 500GB cap of their at&t fiber service.  Not that TW is a saint, but at least there is no datacap on our service and they have since more than doubled our speeds free of charge.  

[Arty]

 

• Michigan: Detroit

YEAH! I don't have AT&T anymore, mostly because in nearly all of michigan they only offer 5/1 at the moment. I'm probably not gonna switch but hopefully this will drive the price down.

 

only get  75/5 over here in michigan

[Guest Kloaked]

Augusta? Really? So Atlanta doesn't exist I presume?

 

Atlanta is getting Google Fiber.

[byalexandr]

Is there ANY gigabit/fiber service in Houston?

[Penny5837]

Source: http://about.att.com/story/plans_to_reach_38_more_metros_blazing_internet_speeds.html

Coverage Map: https://www.att.com/shop/internet/gigapower/coverage-map.html

Check for availability for your residence here: https://www.att.com/shop/u-verse/gigapower.html

I'm a AT&T customer, currently on their 75d/8up U-Verse package that involves bonded pairs and have been with AT&T since the late 90's. Unfortunately I'm not in "Los Angeles", but I am in the Greater Los Angeles area so I'm hoping this will encompasses my area as well, if not in the future since there is dark fiber in the streets of my city, so AT&T could tap into that. Coincidentally I've been having some slowness with my connection, so it's either AT&T being crap or they are doing some upgrades around my area

As soon as I move to Nashville, they roll out fiber in Memphis. Damn.

[Misanthrope]

Supposedly the Home service data cap is 1TB, personally if this was available to me I'd be on the Business service and would not have a cap.

 

1TB is quite a bit, better than Comcrap's 300GB limit, but it's still a limit, which sucks.

 

1 TB for 1Gb is actually pretty little: they're just banking on the fact that this is a pretty new development and most consumer applications like Netflix, Amazon Direct, etc. Just not being able to consume that much bandwidth but someone running a gaming server, downloading heavily from Steam, etc. Could actually finish up 1TB in just a couple of days.

This is typical ISP mentality right here: just kick the ball further down the road and worry about capacity issues in 5 or 6 years when most people are streaming in high bit rate 4k or beyond.

[farhanorakzai]

I have u verse with gigapower currently. Although it is great most of the time, they do sometimes throttle YouTube

[Agent181]

OMG I CAN GET THIS BACK AT HOME AND AT MY CURRENT PLACE :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

[Agent181]

Hi! Americans, say it with me. Fibre. F-I-B-R-E.

 

Also, A-L-U-M-I-N-I-U-M. 

 

Was it that hard?

 

Jk.

 

Ontopic: Better internet for everyone makes me happy, I really think more options for internet as well as better value and speed is super important. I consider it a utility in the 21st century. Sadly, regional and rural areas often miss out. Mostly in countries where the infrastructure is privatised..

F-U-F-I-B-E-R

[EChondo]

Weird that some people have a cap of 300gb, I recently called them about what my cap is when my internet was running slow and they said we get 750gb.

I've currently been working in an ATT Uverse Garage for almost 3 years now and I can say that dont get your hopes up unless you're moving into a new house or new sub division in these areas. ATT has zero plan to lay down fiber and dig in old neighborhoods, only in new ones. For example I live within a mile and half of people that have Uverse service when the best thing I can get from them is DSL. Unfortunately big companies like ATT are going to cut and save money when and whenever they can. Its why they invested 50 BILLION dollars into satellite TV. So they can push that and not have to worry about expanding their infrastructure.

I've only ever heard about a 250GB and 300GB cap from Comcast, still 750GB isn't a lot, but it's up there.

 

We've been on U-Verse since they introduced it years ago for our area, before that it was DSL from them. I'm kinda optimistic for our area, at least my house because I'm so close to their node on the corner. It'll take a year or two if they do plan to bring it where I live but if not I'll definitely have to lay down some cash to get a fiber line to my house.

 

Realistically our best bet are last mile connections being opened up for use or city broadband being a thing, which neither are likely to happen unfortunately.

 

Is there ANY gigabit/fiber service in Houston?

I know there is enTouch, TachUS, and I can't check AT&T's website because it's down for maintenance, but I know I read reports about Gigapower potentially coming to Houston.

 

1 TB for 1Gb is actually pretty little: they're just banking on the fact that this is a pretty new development and most consumer applications like Netflix, Amazon Direct, etc. Just not being able to consume that much bandwidth but someone running a gaming server, downloading heavily from Steam, etc. Could actually finish up 1TB in just a couple of days.

This is typical ISP mentality right here: just kick the ball further down the road and worry about capacity issues in 5 or 6 years when most people are streaming in high bit rate 4k or beyond.

Well to be fair if you're running a gaming server you should be on their business side which has no caps, but I can see downloading a lot of Steam games can eat that cap away real quick, then taking on Netflix, YouTube, etc.

 

I have u verse with gigapower currently. Although it is great most of the time, they do sometimes throttle YouTube

I can attest to the YouTube throttling being a real thing. I just got a VPN(PIA) and I noticed my YouTube went from sluggish to almost instant, so yeah, maybe try a VPN? I prefer PIA since I've used them before and they're the cheapest I've found that are still reliable, but you can try something like Astrill that has a free one week trial(requires phone number and other things to sign up).

 

Although I'm not sure how VPN's would handle Gigabit speeds, I know PIA has "multi-gigabit VPN Tunnel gateways", so they support Gigabit Internet, but you might be limited on what kind of encryption, authentication, and handshake you can use to get the most out of your connection while still hiding your traffic. A PIA employee on Reddit said:

Speed is a funny thing, it can be affected by the equipment involved in the VPN journey, fragmentation, or what type of encryption your VPN provider is using.

You can go to PIA's website and do speedtests to their servers: https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/pages/network/#

 

I pay for 75d/8u and I was just getting 83d/9u from their California VPN server(AT&T allows some bursting here). So it's worth looking into if you haven't already. Oh and PIA allows 5 devices on your account at once, so maybe get some friends in on it and split the cost? That's what I'm doing hehehe.

[NAP51DMustang]

Oh, of course St. louis is getting it, with outlying areas being explored. But nope. Not St. Charles. We suck. 

 

This makes me salty. Real salty.

I bet (need to check) Maryland Heights isn't getting this either, ATT still has a lot of MH at the 10Mbps while Charter has it at 100 Mbps, like wtf ATT.

[farhanorakzai]

Is there ANY gigabit/fiber service in Houston?

  

I've only ever heard about a 250GB and 300GB cap from Comcast, still 750GB isn't a lot, but it's up there.

 

We've been on U-Verse since they introduced it years ago for our area, before that it was DSL from them. I'm kinda optimistic for our area, at least my house because I'm so close to their node on the corner. It'll take a year or two if they do plan to bring it where I live but if not I'll definitely have to lay down some cash to get a fiber line to my house.

 

Realistically our best bet are last mile connections being opened up for use or city broadband being a thing, which neither are likely to happen unfortunately.

 

I know there is enTouch, TachUS, and I can't check AT&T's website because it's down for maintenance, but I know I read reports about Gigapower potentially coming to Houston.

 

Well to be fair if you're running a gaming server you should be on their business side which has no caps, but I can see downloading a lot of Steam games can eat that cap away real quick, then taking on Netflix, YouTube, etc.

 

I can attest to the YouTube throttling being a real thing. I just got a VPN(PIA) and I noticed my YouTube went from sluggish to almost instant, so yeah, maybe try a VPN? I prefer PIA since I've used them before and they're the cheapest I've found that are still reliable, but you can try something like Astrill that has a free one week trial(requires phone number and other things to sign up).

 

Although I'm not sure how VPN's would handle Gigabit speeds, I know PIA has "multi-gigabit VPN Tunnel gateways", so they support Gigabit Internet, but you might be limited on what kind of encryption, authentication, and handshake you can use to get the most out of your connection while still hiding your traffic. A PIA employee on Reddit said:

You can go to PIA's website and do speedtests to their servers: https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/pages/network/#

 

I pay for 75d/8u and I was just getting 83d/9u from their California VPN server(AT&T allows some bursting here). So it's worth looking into if you haven't already. Oh and PIA allows 5 devices on your account at once, so maybe get some friends in on it and split the cost? That's what I'm doing hehehe.

Can confirm, uverse with gigapower is available in Houston. enTouch gigabit is available in a few areas of Houston as well

[byalexandr]

  Can confirm, uverse with gigapower is available in Houston. enTouch gigabit is available in a few areas of Houston as well

Is it location specific? The area I live in is just starting to do fiber infrastructure, so I don't think I have any fiber in my specific area yet.

[farhanorakzai]

Is it location specific? The area I live in is just starting to do fiber infrastructure, so I don't think I have any fiber in my specific area yet.

Yeah, in certain areas

https://www.att.com/shop/unified/availability.html?product_suite=gigapower&saveme=True

[Liltrekkie]

I bet (need to check) Maryland Heights isn't getting this either, ATT still has a lot of MH at the 10Mbps while Charter has it at 100 Mbps, like wtf ATT.

 

See, while Charter has a nice download speed, their upload SUCKS. Charter has nearly an all fiber network now around here, they spent years upgrading it. They can offer gigabit whenever the heck they want. But they choose not to. If att would offer gigabit in the outlying counties, Charter would be forced to offer something better. 

[Belgarathian]

So what happens in the states with ISPs? Does each ISP have it's own infrastructure and network, or does someone own the network and then the ISPs pay a connection fee for each landline/fibre connection and provide additional services? 

 

Right now it just seems like each ISP is installing their own infrastructure willy-nilly. 

[EChondo]

Right now it just seems like each ISP is installing their own infrastructure willy-nilly. 

Pretty much, except other ISP's collude with each other so there isn't "true" competition.

 

It's very rare that a city takes the initiative to setup their own infrastructure so ISP's usually have contracts with the city saying "we'll build out the infrastructure and provide services, but we own everything we install". I'm not sure what the statistic is, but usually there are only two ISP's you can choose from, sometimes only one, but very rarely do you have more than two options that are actually good, and that doesn't mean that the ISP has to serve the whole city, just the major parts or really wherever they want.

 

For example in my city our options are AT&T, Charter, and although rare, Verizon. At my house I can only choose AT&T or Charter, but not even two blocks away you can choose between AT&T and Verizon, but AT&T doesn't serve U-Verse on that street only DSL even though they can server U-Verse a block away at my house. Then there are parts of the city that AT&T doesn't even touch, only Charter does, and then there's some parts that don't have access to Internet Services at all.

 

And this isn't just my city, it's nearly all cities in the U.S. and I'm pretty sure Australia and Canada suffer from similar issues.

 

There's also a word for this, an oligopoly, this video sums it up pretty well;

[ionbasa]

 

I'm a AT&T customer, currently on their 75d/8up U-Verse package that involves bonded pairs and have been with AT&T since the late 90's. Unfortunately I'm not in "Los Angeles", but I am in the Greater Los Angeles area so I'm hoping this will encompasses my area as well, if not in the future since there is dark fiber in the streets of my city, so AT&T could tap into that. Coincidentally I've been having some slowness with my connection, so it's either AT&T being crap or they are doing some upgrades around my area

 

Great! This will hopefully give both Verizon Fios and TWC Maxx a run for its money. I personally have TWC's 100/20 plan and its amazing. They originally claimed that the Maxx upgrades would only be happening in the LA service area, but it ended up being the entire LA Area + the Inland Empire (Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario metropolitan area).

 

Unfortunately AT&T isn't available where I live, but Fios and TWC are. I'm not sure how AT&T will do the upgrades to gigabit, will it still be through bonded pairs? TWC uses Hybrid Fiber Coax. Which means they run fiber to an node and then the node distributes an coax network for an neighborhood.

[Grabster]

Why is there never any fast internet in most of the north east?

[Yog]

Ahhhh, so close with Fresno. Dang. Oh well, I wouldn't want to live here even with gigabit internet.

[EChondo]

See, while Charter has a nice download speed, their upload SUCKS. Charter has nearly an all fiber network now around here, they spent years upgrading it. They can offer gigabit whenever the heck they want. But they choose not to. If att would offer gigabit in the outlying counties, Charter would be forced to offer something better. 

I wish Charter had fiber here in my city, all they have is coax and it's the worst thing I've ever experienced, nothing but problems. They offer their 100d/10u package but you're guaranteed to never get those speeds in my area.

 

Great! This will hopefully give both Verizon Fios and TWC Maxx a run for its money. I personally have TWC's 100/20 plan and its amazing. They originally claimed that the Maxx upgrades would only be happening in the LA service area, but it ended up being the entire LA Area + the Inland Empire (Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario metropolitan area).

 

Unfortunately AT&T isn't available where I live, but Fios and TWC are. I'm not sure how AT&T will do the upgrades to gigabit, will it still be through bonded pairs? TWC uses Hybrid Fiber Coax. Which means they run fiber to an node and then the node distributes an coax network for an neighborhood.

And I wish we had FIOS here, but we're stuck with AT&T and Charter. TWC is not available here.

 

AT&T upgrading to Gigabit needs a node with a fiber handoff and then they run a fiber line straight to your house instead of copper. So right now there's a node less than 600ft to my house that has fiber running to it and I have two copper pairs running to my house from it. They could do Gigabit where I live right now if they wanted too, but they don't want to for whatever reason(hint: no competition from Charter).

 

So for me it's a wait and see type of game unfortunately, hopefully AT&T will get off their asses and implement it already, otherwise we'll be stuck with bonded pairs for years. Although AT&T has been steadily improving our area over the years, not even 10 years ago we were on DSL, I think it was 6d/1u, then U-Verse came out and we got their 18d package, and then promptly got upgraded to their 48d, and now we have double that.

[Liltrekkie]

I wish Charter had fiber here in my city, all they have is coax and it's the worst thing I've ever experienced, nothing but problems. They offer their 100d/10u package but you're guaranteed to never get those speeds in my area.

 

And I wish we had FIOS here, but we're stuck with AT&T and Charter. TWC is not available here.

 

AT&T upgrading to Gigabit needs a node with a fiber handoff and then they run a fiber line straight to your house instead of copper. So right now there's a node less than 600ft to my house that has fiber running to it and I have two copper pairs running to my house from it. They could do Gigabit where I live right now if they wanted too, but they don't want to for whatever reason(hint: no competition from Charter).

 

So for me it's a wait and see type of game unfortunately, hopefully AT&T will get off their asses and implement it already, otherwise we'll be stuck with bonded pairs for years. Although AT&T has been steadily improving our area over the years, not even 10 years ago we were on DSL, I think it was 6d/1u, then U-Verse came out and we got their 18d package, and then promptly got upgraded to their 48d, and now we have double that.

 

 

I wish I had FiOS as well, but sheesh, you get 10 up for charter in your area? I get 5! 100d/5u Man you're living the life compared to me.