SBC: We're fiberlicious. Really.
MSNBC is carrying a piece about SBC Communications building a fiber-to-the-premises project in Pabst Farm, Wisc. Video on demand, fast connections--everything you could want from the broadband of the future, right?
Maybe. In San Francisco's Mission Bay development, SBC also provides fiber directly to apartments. But when Jim Hu and I visited, we were surprised to find that consumers still only had the option to get Internet download speeds equivalent to DSL--for the same price as DSL. To the consumer, the fiber made no difference at all. There might be video-on-demand services, but the technology's blazing broadband potential was being virtually ignored.
The MSNBC article doesn't say whether that's true in Wisconsin.
SBC has said it's spending $4 billion to $6 billion on bringing fiber deeper into its network so that people can get faster speeds. But don't bet on real next-generation technology until you see the bits fly.
