Competition is swell. Bring it on.

That said, no thank you. The last time I signed up for AT&T landline phone service, they marked my account delinquent before they ever even activated the dial tone--in fact, through the magic of computers, before I even ordered service. Like the guy who recorded the conversation with the AT&T operator claiming that 0.01 cent was the same amount of money as 0.01 dollar, I was bemused that the operator did not see any flaw with that accounting.

Ten years later, I still remember the vicious hostility of that customer service agent. The message is clear: in AT&T's training manual, the customer is always wrong and the customer is the enemy. Keep your fiber, AT&T. You make Comcast look angelic, and that's saying something.

Although I've fallen out of love with you, GOOG, bring me Google Fiber and I'll cut you some slack.

At&T's fiber service is terrifyingly dystopian, spying on you using the same techniques as China and Iran's governments, by looking through every single network packet and storing the data. That's every video your family watches, every email you write, every search you make. And because AT&T is storing that data, the government also has easy access to everything you have ever done on the Internet, as well. Hopefully the computers that constantly look for terrorists don't accidentally flag you because of an accidental click you made 3 years ago!

You can read more about the details here: Web Link

You have to use a VPN provider with AT&T fiber.
Or you can use sonic.net as your ISP which uses AT&T physical lines and provides a free VPN service and what EFF says is the strongest privacy protection in the industry.

AT&T reveals yet again that they will never invest their Monopoly money into making life better, unless someone puts a gun to their head.

Yet more validation that these service providers should be regulated like the utilities that they are. Let them only keep 15% of customer money. The rest gets invested back into making services non-garbage.

AT&T is well-known for high prices and poor service. Their DSL service only still exists today because they have an effective monopoly in many areas.

Currently, they offer virtually no fiber optic service in the Bay Area, so three times virtually nothing would be: virtually nothing. They are spending little on capital improvements for fiber, although they make many press releases stating that they are now serving an area (i.e., a tiny fraction of the homes).

With respect to fiber service, they are a poor alternative to Google Fiber in the areas in which they compete.
> For example, AT&T spies on your transmissions. They perform deep packet inspection on them, and then does God-knows-what with your data.
> If you don't want them to spy on your transmissions, they will only refrain from doing so if you pay them $30 per month ("protection" money?)
> They place a cap on the monthly amount of data you transmit/receive of 1 terabyte for your internet service. If you don't like that, you must pay them $30 more per month. Alternatively, you must bundle payment for their TV service. This helps AT&T prevent you from using your Gigapower service to get alternative video services, thus preserving their business model; otherwise, they would become just a dumb pipe of internet transmissions.
> Their internet backbone speeds are inferior to Google Fiber.

The best thing that can be said about AT&T internet service is that their customer service is not as abominable as Comcast's.

I suppose that accepting AT&T (or even [shudder] Comcast) may be a necessary evil while awaiting good internet service, such as that offered by Google.

For residential fiber based triple play service, it seems AT&T responds to Google Fiber with GigaPower Uverse. However, they have a much larger footprint for fiber to commercial buildings and cell towers as per this article: Web Link

As far as I can tell, the only positive thing about AT&T is their stock's ~5% dividend yield.

As a longtime occasional AT&T customer, I can't say that their products and services are memorable in any way. I'm not currently an AT&T customer (I used to have their DSL), but switched to Comcast, knowing that I didn't expect for be any happier using the cable company (which I have used before).

Let's face it: AT&T and Comcast are dumb pipes. They provide about as much innovation as PG&E or the town's utilities.

Much as I think that placing too much faith into GOOG is unwise, I must say that they're a reasonable alternative to AT&T or Comcast.

I believe we should welcome more companies offering such service with open arms, the more providers there are, the better for consumers...

Not sure why there is so much hostile reaction to a private company offering a service to the customers. Would we want no one other than google to offer this service in Mountain View ? Most of the money google makes is from customer data, so I am not sure where the privacy discussion is leading to anyway..

Peace !

Not sure what the City Council is waiting for. The hillbillies in
Chatanooga TN already have municipal gigabit that's cheaper than the
corporate alternative:
Web Link

Around 4 years ago I was using AT&T DSL I never got the speed they promises to deliver always slow sometimes I had to wait for minutes before I can download a page , we need something better .

This clearly shows that AT&T (and Comcast) are capable of delivering better service, they just can't be bothered to do so until there is true competition. Bring on more competition!

No way would I trust AT&T. It is well known that AT&T spies on behalf of the NSA on US citizens (look up Room 641A) See also : Web Link