AT&T Strengthens Fiber Leadership with Plans to Bring High-Speed Internet to More People Through New and Expanded Third-Party Relationships

AT&T announced that it is expanding where it can serve world-class fiber reaching more people and places across the country than anyone else.

To bring fiber to more Americans, AT&T is pursuing a variety of economically-attractive models that complement its primary focus of growing its organic in-footprint fiber network. These other models include: its Gigapower joint venture with BlackRock, through a fund managed by its Diversified Infrastructure business, commercial open-access agreements, and public-private partnerships supported by federal infrastructure funding through programs like BEAD.

The Company already serves more than 8.8 million AT&T Fiber customers and passes 28 million+ total consumer and business fiber locations. Customers continue to show they love AT&T Fiber. AT&T was voted the best fiber provider in the country according to the 2024 American Customer Satisfaction Index2 and AT&T Fiber is America’s fastest Internet with the most reliable speeds according to Ookla3.

AT&T’s continued fiber expansion grows its ability to serve customers how they want to be served with 5G and fiber connectivity from one provider. Today, about four of every 10 AT&T Fiber households choose AT&T wireless service. AT&T’s Mobility business also performs better where it offers fiber. AT&T’s postpaid phone subscriber share is about 500 basis points higher where the Company offers AT&T Fiber versus its average subscriber share nationwide.

AT&T remains focused on growing where it offers fiber in both existing and new service areas. While still in the early phase of scaling, AT&T Fiber performance in Gigapower geographies is showing positive momentum. Key business trends include:

Based on this performance, AT&T and BlackRock plan to grow Gigapower and are looking for opportunities to expand Gigapower’s fiber footprint beyond the initial 1.5 million locations announced in December 2022. This Gigapower expansion may include growth in its existing geographies as well as the addition of new geographies.

“AT&T is America’s largest and leading fiber provider,” said John Stankey, chief executive officer, AT&T. “With our organic fiber build, we’re seeing improving returns as we expand our network. In new service areas, Gigapower is ramping well, and we’re targeting additional geographies for growth with the joint venture and other commercial open-access agreements. Customers tell us they want a high-performance wireless and broadband experience from a single provider, and AT&T is best positioned to serve this growing need.”

“BlackRock is proud to partner with AT&T to bring high-speed internet to more American households,” said Larry Fink, chairman and chief executive officer, BlackRock. “This continuing investment on behalf of our clients in Gigapower is helping bridge the digital divide and supporting economic growth in communities across America through expanded access to critical broadband services.”

AT&T is the proven leader in fiber and the clear provider of choice for commercial open-access fiber builders. AT&T provides fiber builders with a winning fiber formula. It is able to offer commercial open-access providers a unique combination of network architecture expertise, a cost-effective growth path, and an agile go-to-market approach to efficiently penetrate fiber builds with a wireless cross-sell base and more distribution points than any competitor.

In order to reach even more people with AT&T Fiber in geographies not served by AT&T’s network or Gigapower, AT&T is announcing four new agreements with commercial open-access providers: Boldyn Networks, Digital Infrastructure Group, PRIME FiBER and Ubiquity. These fiber agreements provide AT&T with wholesale access to these fiber broadband networks, enabling the Company to offer both AT&T Fiber and 5G wireless services to more customers.

Each company AT&T is working with was selected because they provide opportunities to expand AT&T Fiber distribution to new service areas without existing fiber options. As these providers add fiber locations, AT&T will evaluate where it wants to offer AT&T Fiber.

AT&T continues to organically build fiber at scale in-footprint and remains on track to pass 30 million+ consumer and business locations with fiber by the end of 2025. The better-than-expected returns the Company is seeing on its fiber investment potentially expands the opportunity to go beyond this target by roughly 10 million to 15 million additional in-footprint locations passed. This also assumes similar build parameters and a regulatory environment that remains attractive to building infrastructure.

Source: AT&T media announcement