I had an AT&T salesman come to my door just a few days ago to try and sell me their new "fiber" they had just installed in my area (I'm in a large city mentioned in the article), telling me all of the benefits of having fast internet. I had to lie and tell him I didn't own a TV in order to get him to stop talking about the 300 channel TV/internet bundle.
When I finally squeezed the actual speed of it out of him the answer was 18 Mbps, for $60 a month (of course he could get me a special deal of $40 for the first 3 months, which is the same deal as on their website).
I've used them before (AT&T Uverse) and they require an ATT router/modem, for an additional fee of course, even though using their hardware is technically completely unnecessary.
I actually told him that Time Warner was currently cheaper and more reliable than what he was offering, which is true unfortunately.
They run fiber to their Uverse nodes and then apparently tell their salespeople to sell this as a feature. I remember one telling me the benefits of a "fiber optic signal" somehow going to my house over copper. I still ended up switching later on since they're cheaper than my local cable provider, though network performance doesn't seem to be as good.
> benefits of a "fiber optic signal" somehow going to my house over copper
This is what is sold in the UK a lot, its called fibre to the cabinet (FTC) and does indeed make a difference, if your cabinet is on the street corner (100m) that beats the 1 mile maybe to the actual exchange as a lot of internet speed is dictated by the decay one gets with copper signals.
When I finally squeezed the actual speed of it out of him the answer was 18 Mbps, for $60 a month (of course he could get me a special deal of $40 for the first 3 months, which is the same deal as on their website).
I've used them before (AT&T Uverse) and they require an ATT router/modem, for an additional fee of course, even though using their hardware is technically completely unnecessary.
I actually told him that Time Warner was currently cheaper and more reliable than what he was offering, which is true unfortunately.
AT&T is a joke.