California makes AT&T's list for limited and costly rural broadband

29 September 2017 by Steve Blum
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Taxes not included. Except in my bonus check.

AT&T says it’s official: they are launching slow, expensive wireless Internet service in rural California, and other undefined “underserved” areas, instead of upgrading ageing copper networks to modern levels. The technology is designed to support 10 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload speeds, although there are no guarantees.

The California Public Utilities Commission, on the other hand, decided to go in the opposition direction and unanimously endorsed the higher standard of 25 Mbps down/3 Mbps up yesterday. That’ll have no effect on AT&T’s fixed wireless roll out though, whenever that actually happens.

There seems to be a different between making it official and making it real. Using the link in the press announcement, I checked a dozen locations in California where AT&T has claimed federal Connect America Fund subsidies – where its wireless local loop service is targeted – and all came back with “AT&T fixed wireless Internet isn’t in your area yet”. I got the same response when I entered the zip codes for a couple of the Texan counties that AT&T specifically called out as ready for fixed wireless service in a separate press release.

California was on a list of nine new states, bringing the total where AT&T claims to offer its 10 Mbps down/1 Mbps up wireless substitute service to 18 states.

According to Ars Technica, the base rate for the service is $70 a month, or $60 a month with a contract. AT&T isn’t disclosing the monthly rate on its website, but it does helpfully point out that the base service only includes 160 gigabytes a month. Anything over that costs $10 per 50 GB, up to $200, for a total max charge of $270 a month.

This fixed wireless service is what the California legislature voted to back with $300 million of taxpayer subsidies. Whether it happens or not depends on governor Brown, who has until 15 October 2017 to approve or veto assembly bill 1665.