U-verse: Diversity and Controversy
As followup to last week's writeup on AT&T and Verizon's differing approaches to bringing fiber-routed bandwidth to homes and businesses, AT&T gave some San Jose, CA area residents an early Christmas present; they're now able to try out AT&T's U-verse service too. I contacted AT&T spokesperson Ted Carr, specifically to find out what AT&T's Sacramento-area plans were, and got this response:
In addition to the communities in the Bay Area, we’ve already announced availability in San Antonio and Houston. For competitive reasons, however, we are not disclosing the specific markets beyond these. We’re working rapidly to bring U-verse services to markets across our service territory and are on-track to pass 19 million living units by the end of 2008 as part of our initial deployment.
AT&T's projections are optimistic, maybe overly optimistic. Ars Technica published a great writeup (discussion at Slashdot) at the beginning of last week that covers the regulatory issues surrounding the rollout of fiber-based services, using the case study of several Chicago-area communities. Note that the issues raised aren't unique to U-verse; from what I understand, Verizon's FiOS also faces similar rollout speed bumps (or roadblocks?). It's not clear to me to what degree the few-days-later FCC fast-track mandate will make Ars's writeup conclusions a moot point (Ars's initial analysis calls it a 'big win for AT&T in particular'); can a reader out there more knowledgeable about this topic than I comment on this?
While I wait for U-verse, it looks like I'll be able to test-drive fiber via another avenue. Shortly after I published my last writeup on this topic, SureWest got ahold of me and expressed interest in having me review their fiber-enabled business and residential services. According to spokesman Ron Rogers, "Once I look into this with our technical and marketing folks, I will get back to you." I'll report back any updates, which won't be until at least after CES and ICCE.
