Fiber-to-the-home shaping up to be a CSP battleground
As the fiber broadband race continues to pick up steam, this week saw AT&T announced expansion of its GigaPower service to 38 additional markets while Google Fiber is eyeing build outs in Los Angeles and Chicago.
Consumer demand for high-speed, high-quality broadband is booming, which means service providers are aggressively building out fiber-to-the-home networks to capture market share in lucrative domestic markets.
Google Fiber was an early mover in this space and has fiber networks currently active in Austin, Provo and Kansas City.
Now, the company is looking to potentially bring the service to LA and Chicago.
Jill Szuchmacher, director of Google Fiber Expansion, took to the company’s corporate blog to explain: “Home to a combined 6+ million people, Chicago and L.A. are the two largest metros we’ve engaged with to date. And with the help of gigabit Internet, Chicago and L.A. can boost their creative cultures with Internet speed to match their size. we’ll work closely with city leaders to collect detailed information about each metro area. From Venice Beach to Wrigley Field, we’ll study the different factors that would affect construction—like city infrastructure and topography—and use that information to help us prepare to build a local fiber network. While we can’t guarantee that we’ll be able to bring Fiber to Chicago and L.A., this is a big step for these cities and their leaders.”
Google Fiber is currently in various phases of roll out in Salt Lake City, San Antonio, Nashville, Atlanta, Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham. In addition to Chicago and LA, other potential fiber cities are Portland, San Jose, Irvine, San Diego, Phoenix, Oklahoma City, Louisville, Jacksonville and Tampa. Here’s a handy map.
For its part, AT&T announced GigaPower expansion plans for these cities: Birmingham, Huntsville, Mobile, Montgomery, Little Rock, Northwest Arkansas, Bakersfield, Fresno, Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, Pensacola, West Palm Beach, Augusta, Indianapolis, Wichita, Louisville, Baton Rouge, Shreveport, Jefferson Parish, Jackson, St. Louis, Detroit, Reno, Asheville, Cleveland, Columbus, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Charleston, Columbia, Greenville, Memphis, El Paso, Lubbock and Milwaukee.
“Customer demand for AT&T GigaPower and sales have exceeded expectations since launching speeds up to 1 gigabit per second in Austin,” Brad Bentley, executive vice president and chief marketing officer, AT&T Entertainment Group, said.
“The faster speeds offered through AT&T GigaPower keep consumers and small businesses connected as they are accessing more content on more devices. This improves a customer’s experience when they are connecting to the cloud, hosting a videoconference, streaming videos and music, playing online games and more.”
Here’s a map that rounds up GigaPower availability and expansion plans.
