AT&T lights up gigabit fiber in five new metro areas

AT&T is bringing fiber-to-the-home Internet to five new metro areas this month, boosting its fiber total to 51 metro areas in the US. Milwaukee (WI) has AT&T Fiber now, and later in Feb the service will arrive in Columbia (SC), Jackson (MI), Knoxville (TN), and Shreveport (LA). AT&T Fiber is available to nearly four million homes and businesses (up from three million in November 2016), but there's still a lot of work left to put fiber in additional cities and expand deployment in those where it's already available. "By mid-2019 we plan to reach at least 12.5 million locations across 67 metro areas with our 100 percent fiber network," AT&T said. The company agreed to hit those numbers in exchange for getting its purchase of DirecTV approved in 2015.