AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) has unveiled a plan to bring its gigabit fiber internet to 11 metro areas bringing the total metropolitan count to 38 cities after adding on to the already served cities.
AT&T announced the 11 new cities as part of its plan to expand the gigabit speed broadband to more homes. The service is already available in 11 metro areas. The 11 new areas to benefit from the expansion include Corpus Christi, Texas; Wilmington, North Carolina; Lafayette, Louisiana; Columbus, Georgia; Gainesville and Panama City, Florida; Central Kentucky; Biloxi-Gulfport, Mississippi, and Northeast Mississippi; Knoxville, Tennessee and Southeastern Tennessee.
AT&T’s decision to expand its gigabit broadband service is most likely a competitive move against Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) which has proved itself a formidable rival with Google Fiber. AT&T plans to secure a wider market to avoid losing out to Google Fiber which is reportedly scaling down because it did not reach its subscriber targets.
AT&T is also filing a lawsuit against Google in Louisville and Nashville in order to slow down the deployment of Google Fiber. The idea is to take advantage of the situation by reaching more audiences before Google. So far the telecommunications company offers the gigabit speed broadband service to roughly 3 million customers in residential apartments, homes, and business premises. The company plans to offer the service to 12.5 million customers by 2019.
The firm has also had its fair share of controversy especially with regard to a program through which it offered lower subscription prices in exchange for web browsing scans so that it could deliver personalized ads. AT&T has however abolished the targeted ads program and announced that every customer will be offered an option for the lowest price. The company has been charging a monthly subscription fee of $70 in areas where Google Fiber is present and roughly $90 in areas with no competition.
AT&T stocks closed the latest trading session at $39.16, down by $0.26 or 0.66% compared to the price of the stock in the previous trading session.
