AT&T gives gratis bump-up in fiber speeds

AT&T Fiber is giving its customers a free bump in speeds, boosting its 100 Mbps customers to 300 Mbps, and its 300 Mbps customers to 500 Mbps. AT&T will still offer its 1 gig plan as well, and these customers get HBO Max included. For a number of years fiber has been regarded as too expensive to deploy in most places. But the Covid-19 pandemic is causing a renewed interest. With so many people working and learning from home, they’re clamoring for faster broadband. And they’d like it to provide symmetrical downstream and upstream speeds. The broadband industry, as well as the US government, have heard the cries, and they’re responding. In AT&T’s case, its top executives touted their fiber plans in the company’s first-quarter 2021 earnings call. AT&T CEO John Stankey said the company was on track to build out fiber to 3 million more consumer and business locations in 2021.