AT&T, Black Rock, Gigapower Execs Share Their Vision: Open Access With Scale

Black Rock, AT&T, and Gigapower executives shared their vision for the joint venture and how they expect to change attitudes toward open access. Adam Waltz, Managing Director of Black Rock’s Global Infrastructure Fund was excited because the company sees the US as underpenetrated when it comes to fiber broadband. Gigapower CEO Bill Hogg said, “scale will be a differentiator” beacuse the network’s scale will appeal to service providers interested in offering service over the network because “you don’t want to make [them] invest over and over with a lot of small players.” Erin Scarborough, AT&T President of Broadband and Connectivity, said the company still prefers owner’s economics where it makes sense, but added that “building out networks is really onerous – it takes time, and it takes significant capital.” However, she said the open access and joint venture approach will enable the company to expand more rapidly.