AT&T brings its high-speed Internet to Durham, NC

AT&T isdelivering on a promise it made last year to wire Durham, NC with its U-verse with GigaPower fiber service. The company was selected to provide the Internet service after the North Carolina Next Generation Network (NCNGN) negotiated with eight providers to accelerate deployment of high-speed broadband in the state.

As Speed Matters reported in the past, NCNGN is “a regional initiative focused on stimulating the deployment of next generation broadband networks in North Carolina.” It is made up of “six municipalities and four leading research universities and supported by local Chambers of Commerce and businesses in the Research Triangle and Piedmont regions.”

Since AT&T doesn’t normally service the Durham, NC, the company had to design and build a new network to support the deployment. According to local reports: “Few details on price and availability were immediately available, but AT&T does not currently operate wired services in Durham, meaning a lot of behind-the-scenes effort was required to deploy entirely new infrastructure.”

Durham is the latest city to get AT&T’s fiber service. In December, the company announced that it would extend its GigaPower network to Carrboro, Cary, Chapel Hill, Raleigh, and Winston-Salem, NC. GigaPower is also available in San Jose, Calif.; Chicago, Ill.; Dallas, Austin, and Houston, Texas; and Miami, Fla.

AT&T has committed to expand GigaPower fiber to 12.5 million customer locations as part of the AT&T-DirecTV transaction. In his statement recommending the transaction, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler explained that AT&T’s commitment to build its fiber network will benefit consumers:

An order recommending that the AT&T/DirecTV transaction be approved with conditions has circulated to the Commissioners. The proposed order outlines a number of conditions that will directly benefit consumers by bringing more competition to the broadband marketplace. If the conditions are approved by my colleagues, 12.5 million customer locations will have access to a competitive high-speed fiber connection. This additional build-out is about 10 times the size of AT&T’s current fiber-to-the-premise deployment, increases the entire nation’s residential fiber build by more than 40 percent, and more than triples the number of metropolitan areas AT&T has announced plans to serve.

AT&T enters Durham market with high-speed Internet (Triangle Business Journal, July 17, 2015)

North Carolina Next Generation Network picks AT&T (Speed Matters, Apr. 18, 20140)

AT&T GigaPower network opens in part of Research Triangle, Winston-Salem, NC (Speed Matters, Dec. 19, 2014)

Statement of FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler on Recommendation Concerning AT&T/DirecTV Transaction (FCC, July 21, 2015)