AT&T Preps U-Verse Speed Boosts

AT&T is on track to complete U-verse upgrades that will boost downstream Internet speeds to 45 Mbps “in the next few months,” and get the telco pointed toward speeds of 75 Mbps and 100 Mbps “in the near future,” company SVP and CFO John Stephens said.

The coming speed increases are one result of Project VIP, a three-year- capex investment plan that will see AT&T expand its U-verse footprint by an additional 8.5 million customer locations, for a total penetration of 33 million homes. AT&T is also spending a good chunk of that cash to deploy its Long Term Evolution network, which should be “substantially complete” by the summer of 2014, according to AT&T Mobility president and CEO Ralph de la Vega. AT&T’s coming wireline speed upgrades could be welcome news to customers who need more than 24 Mbps, the downstream maximum speeds supported by AT&T’s current, fastest Internet tier, Max Turbo. Still, they don’t pose a threat to overtake the speeds offered by most major U.S. cable MSOs, which have already deployed DOCSIS 3.0 tier that advertise maximum downstream speeds of 100 Mbps or more.