AT&T gives investors and government very different takes on fiber internet

AT&T says fiber internet is a "superior" technology that is built for today and the future because of its ability to deliver symmetrical upload and download speeds of 1Gbps and higher. AT&T also says that "there is no compelling evidence" to support the deployment of fiber across the US, and that rural people should be satisfied with non-fiber internet access that provides only 10Mbps upload speeds. The difference between those two wildly different statements was the audience. AT&T's message about fiber's future-proof nature was delivered to investors while AT&T discussed its incremental fiber expansion in which it is hooking up more homes in metro areas where it already offers fiber. By contrast, AT&T's message that Americans don't need fiber access was delivered to the US government while the internet service provider lobbied against government-subsidized construction of fiber lines that are clearly superior to the DSL and fixed wireless home-internet products that AT&T sells in areas where it decided that fiber is not cost-effective. The company is fighting proposals to subsidize nationwide fiber, as blocking fiber construction would protect it from competition in the many areas where it hasn't upgraded to copper fiber as well as places where it has deployed fixed wireless instead of wired internet.