AT&T announced Monday that it will roll out an internet service that can hit upload and download speeds of 5 Gbps in more than 70 metro areas, which would be the most widely available ultra-fast internet service in the United States.
According to a press release on AT&T’s website, “nearly 5.2 million customer locations in parts of more than 70 metro areas, such as L.A., Atlanta and Dallas, will be able to take advantage of symmetrical 2-Gig and 5-Gig speed tiers.” The plans begin rolling out today. There’s four plans in total—a 2GB plan that costs $110 a month or a 5GB plan for $225. Business alternatives of the same plans cost $225 and $395 respectively.
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AT&T claimed it would continue to push speeds and said it had achieved internet as fast as 10GB in lab conditions. “The pandemic has significantly changed how consumers and businesses use the internet and what is required from a broadband provider,” Roger Enter, founder and Lead Analyst of Recon Analytics—a telecom consulting firm, said in AT&T’s press release.
Generally speaking, very fast internet is available in a few major cities and in smaller towns where municipal fiber internet has been launched. But huge portions of the country are still underserved, and AT&T’s new service isn’t going to bring super-fast fiber internet to rural areas or places where broadband infrastructure has been lacking. That said, it’s good to see companies finally begin to try to compete on speed of service rather than simply continue to offer the same outdated tech to customers who are locked in by a lack of options.
The pandemic forced millions of Americans to work from home. As the workforce changed it realized how dreadful U.S. broadband infrastructure is. People in the U.S. pay ludicrous costs for broadband access and fight strange fees and arbitrary usage caps. Rural areas often have poor or little connection, but problems also persist in cities like NYC. The pandemic forced Americans to confront these problems and the market, it seems, is reacting.
AT&T promised its new service will attract new customers with “no equipment fees, no annual contract, no data caps and no price increase at 12 months.” AT&T also said that its upload speeds would match the download speeds.
Time will tell if AT&T keeps all these promises and just how fast the speeds actually are. But the fact that a major telecom company is even attempting to offer speeds so fast to so many people is a step in the right direction.
