AT&T has started offering 2Gbps and 5Gbps symmetrical Internet speeds over its fiber-to-the-home network, the telecom company announced today. The multi-gigabit speeds are available to “nearly 5.2 million customer locations in parts of more than 70 metro areas, such as LA, Atlanta, and Dallas,” AT&T said.
AT&T is charging $110 per month plus taxes for its 2Gbps home-Internet plan and $180 per month plus taxes for the 5Gbps home-Internet plan. Business fiber prices are $225 per month for 2Gbps and $395 for 5Gbps. Base prices for other fiber home-Internet plans are $55 for 300Mbps, $65 for 500Mbps, and $80 for 1Gbps. The fine print notes that a “$99 installation fee may apply.”
AT&T imposes data caps on lower-end home-Internet plans but provides unlimited data on tiers with speeds of 100Mbps and above. AT&T’s announcement said its new fiber plans have “no equipment fees, no annual contract, no data caps, and no price increase at 12 months.” The 1Gbps and multi-gigabit plans also include HBO Max access.
“Both of the new multi-gig service tiers include free rental of AT&T’s modem-router gateway device for in-home Wi-Fi,” CNET reported. AT&T’s latest gateway supports Wi-Fi 6.
The maximum single-device speed apparently requires a wired connection, though multiple devices could combine to use up the full 5Gbps over Wi-Fi. Here’s what AT&T says about achieving top speeds on the 5Gbps plan:
The maximum speed on a single connected device is 4.7Gbps. In order to achieve that speed, you must have an appropriate wired connection between the 5Gb port of the Wi-Fi gateway and a device capable of receiving the maximum speed. In other configurations, the speed will be distributed to all the connected devices using wired or Wi-Fi connections to the gateway.
Where it’s available
The full list of metro areas where AT&T offers gigabit or multi-gigabit speeds is available here. The multi-gig areas include parts of Alabama, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin. You can use AT&T’s address-checker to see if fiber is available at your home or business.
AT&T said it plans to eventually bring the multi-gigabit speed tiers “to the rest of the company’s existing fiber base,” CNET wrote.
AT&T has unfortunately left tens of millions of households in its 21-state wireline territory without fiber-to-the-home access. The company also stopped offering its oldest DSL product to new customers—even in areas that it hasn’t upgraded. That means new customers can only sign up for AT&T wired Internet in places that have either fiber-to-the-home or fiber-to-the-node access.
AT&T said in October that it had about 5.7 million fiber-to-the-home customers, including about 3.4 million on 1Gbps connections. AT&T said it had 14.2 million home-Internet customers when fiber, fiber-to-the-node, and DSL are added together.
AT&T aims for 30 million fiber locations
AT&T was slowing down its fiber-to-the-home builds in 2019, but the company ramped up fiber deployment again in early 2021 amid a change in business plans. AT&T originally said it planned to bring fiber to 3 million new homes and businesses in 2021 but later revised that number down to 2.6 million.
That probably means AT&T fiber is available at about 17.5 million locations now (we asked AT&T for an up-to-date figure and will update this article if we get a response). The company has said it will add 3 million to 5 million new fiber locations per year over the next few years.
“AT&T will continue bringing multi-gig-capable technology across our current fiber footprint throughout 2022 and as part of our future expansion efforts to cover 30 million customer locations by year-end 2025,” the company said today.
There are about 53 million households in AT&T’s home-Internet service area.
Separately, Ziply Fiber last week announced 2Gbps and 5Gbps fiber for “nearly 170,000 residential customer addresses in 60 cities and towns across Washington, Oregon, and Idaho,” charging $120 a month for 2Gbps and $300 for 5Gbps.