AT&T brings gigabit broadband to Google’s home town

AT&T has delivered on its promise to bring gigabit broadband to Silicon Valley, more than seven months after it first announced its plans. The carrier recently announced the availability of U-Verse with GigaPower in parts of Cupertino, California, but at a steep premium as against the cost of the GigaPower service in cities with gigabit internet competition.

GigaPower had arrived ahead of Google Fiber, which was available in eight markets across the US, but had to yet reach the heart of the US  tech industry. Cupertino better known as  Apple's home base, was also just down the road from Google's backyard in Mountain View.

The service from AT&T comes for $110 per month and offers speeds up to 1 gigabit-per-second in Cupertino. There was also a lower-priced tier of speeds up to 300 megabits-per-second for $80 a month.

According to commentators, Google Fiber's absence from Silicon Valley might be good for AT&T, but it appeared to be bad for the wallets of Cupertino residents as the telecom giant had a higher tariff for Cupertino residents   than in other parts of the US where it competed directly with Google Fiber.

In Kansas City, for instance, where GigaPower was launched in February, AT&T charged $70 per month for gigabit internet - $40 less than the Cupertino price.

Meanwhile, AT&T had invested over $950 million to enhance its best-in-class wireless and wired networks in Mississippi, over a three-year period from 2012 through 2014.

The investment comes as part of the carrier's Project Velocity IP (VIP), which came as part of an investment plan that was chiefly focused on network enhancement as also expansion.

The investment is expected to pave the way for a wide range of upgrades, along with bringing network reliability, coverage, speed and performance for Mississippi residents and business customers.

With this AT&T had made a total of 131 wireless network upgrades in Mississippi last year.

The upgrades by the company in 2014 largely covered new cell sites, increased network capacity, and new wireless high-speed internet connections. Further, the year also saw the addition of a number of Mississippi markets to AT&T's extensive LTE network, which included 389 sites in 80 of Mississippi's 82 counties.

According to Mayo Flynt, president of AT&T Mississippi, AT&T's continued investment in Mississippi brought a host of new, innovative opportunities for residents and businesses to connect with each other and their customers.