Sunday, May 18, 2014

Yet another AT&T premise infrastructure deployment by press release

Included in AT&T’s announcement today of its acquisition of DirectTV is yet another in a long legacy of Internet premise infrastructure deployments by press release over the years including Project Pronto, Project Lightspeed and Project VIP that were essentially PR gambits.

AT&T said cash generated by unspecified "merger synergies" (most likely lower costs for TV programming) will enable it to provide premise Internet service to 15 million customer premises in its service territory utilizing a combination of technologies including fiber to the premises and fixed wireless. The planned infrastructure deployments will be completed within four years of the closure of the DirecTV transaction, according to AT&T.

Most likely “Project DirecTV” or whatever AT&T calls it will be forgotten within a year or two and any reduced TV programming costs will instead be allocated to shareholder dividends and executive compensation.

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