AT&T (NYSE: T) may be challenging Louisville, Ky.'s new utility pole access process, but it's not wasting time to bring its 1 Gbps FTTH service to parts of the city while holding up Google Fiber (NASDAQ: GOOG) from gaining a foothold in the market.
Despite AT&T's legal challenge over the pole access issue, the potential positive outcome is that some of Louisville's residential customers will be able to get a fiber-based broadband connection.
Ted Smith, Louisville Metro's chief of civic innovation, said that "This will be an important milestone."
Typical of its other GigaPower builds, AT&T according to a WDRB report is going to bring the service to two of the city's East End subdivisions.
Among the initial service targets are Silver Oaks and Landherr Estates. The service provider will begin installing fiber underground along the city's rights-of-way.
Joe Burgan, an AT&T spokesman, told WDRB that the telco contacted the homeowners associations of these subdivisions via a letter, but would not confirm if it has plans to bring the service to other Louisville neighborhoods or when services would be live.
In a letter that was included in an email to homeowner association presidents in each of the developments, AT&T said it would soon be "physically on the property" in the neighborhood -- including "some digging and the installation of pedestals and underground conduit" -- to install "a new state-of-the-art fiber to the home network."
Hood Harris, president of AT&T Kentucky, would not reveal how much of Louisville would get GigaPower, but he did tell WDRB that it will wire other parts of the city that leverage existing utility pole connections.
"I can tell you, the ones (neighborhoods) we're in now -- they're not the first and they're not going to be the last," Harris said. "We're committed to do a lot of work here to put this product out for consumers."
Meanwhile, Google Fiber said it wants to wire all of Kentucky's Jefferson County with FTTH, a multimillion-dollar project.
For more:
- WDRB.com has this article
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