Google’s selective roll-out of fiber internet has paved the way for AT&T to do that same, potentially alienating width swaths of customers in the process, according to Karl Bode in DSL Reports.
Bode explains how AT&T will move away from a utility model, in which all communities are treated the same to Google’s model of cherry-picking high-income, high-tech cities and making others wait.
“On one hand the elimination of even coverage requirements is great for broadband providers looking for the best possible return on their investment. On the other hand, the only reason many of you even have broadband in the first place is thanks to these franchise obligations, so next-generation upgrades (be it by AT&T or Google) are going to be consistently spotty,” Bode writes.
