Morning Reads for Tuesday, September 6

AT&T should pick the mic back up.

“Between 2011 and 2015, while Google Fiber was cutting its teeth on fiber, AT&T invested over $140B in its network, building to over one million route miles of fiber globally and deploying ultra-high-speed fiber-fed GigaPower broadband services, reaching over a hundred cities. Along the way, AT&T spent over $13B with minority, women and disabled veteran-owned suppliers in 2015 alone.”

Why? Because “February 2010: Google announces its intent to build ultra-high-speed fiber-fed broadband networks”

Gigabit fiber networks have long been possible. The existing cable/telco companies refused to provide it because they did not want to spend the money. They just wanted to sit back and collect the checks. It took competition from Google to force these guys to upgrade. Before then, as recently as 2010, AT&T and the rest were charging $100 a month for 750 kbps! Even now, 50 mbps costs $100 a month for most carriers, and it RARELY reaches 50 m at night and on weekends!

It’s expensive! Of course! Because these companies have spent billions on lobbying state and local governments to protect their monopolies, forcing you to rent cable boxes and modems with long-outdated technology and preventing competitors LIKE GOOGLE from being allowed to use existing utility poles. And this will continue so long as they continue to be able to buy off “pro-business” politicians with campaign contributions and perks, especially on the state and local levels.

I do not know who is worse with stuff like this: cable/telecom companies or energy companies. Living in Georgia with the likes of Cox, Comcast and Georgia Power we get the worst of the worst.

But hey, AT&T, enjoy it while it lasts. Because the big development to break up your monopoly is coming soon: 5G. 5G wireless will provide gigabit Internet service to mobile devices! So with 5G – and net neutrality – we will soon be able to bypass the cable companies altogether and provide gigabit Internet to all our devices using mobile hotspots. Some companies are beginning early 5G testing already, and have already started to make 5G equipment commercially available. Virtually all the major U.S. phone companies will start 5G testing in earnest in 2017, and it will start rolling out in some markets in 2018. T-Mobile is already gearing up for the 5G era by getting rid of data buckets.

So enjoy your “victory” bought by lining the pockets of politicians today. By 2020, your monopoly will be the equivalent of making carriages and whips for horse-and-buggy outfits because everyone will be using 5G mobile hardware and private routers, and will have replaced cable boxes with modern hardware from the likes of Apple, Amazon, Google and Roku.

Yes, AT&T is also a wireless carrier in addition to being a cable provider. But T-Mobile and especially Verizon have done a whole lot more to prepare for 5G than AT&T has. So 10 years from now when virtually no one relies on land lines for phone, cable TV or Internet we will see if AT&T and the rest of the utilities who have relied on the government protecting their monopolies will still be laughing.