Fiber
‘Not a Great Product’: AT&T Not Looking to Invest Heavily in Fixed Wireless
The company’s CFO compared fixed wireless to ‘empty calories.’

February 27, 2023 – The chief financial officer of AT&T said Monday that the company doesn’t see fixed wireless as a great long-term solution as the company focuses on plowing fiber at a record pace.
“Fixed wireless in certain cases is kind of nice, it’s a nice catch product where we have a copper customer that we’re going to get to in the next 12 to 24 months,” said Pascal Desroches during Deutsche Bank’s annual media, internet and telecom conference.
“But long term, it’s not a solution we want to put a lot of resources behind. Why? It’s because it’s not a great product and the customer ultimately is going to reject it,” he said. “That is our belief. When you look at the amount of bandwidth that is consumed in the home, over time the customer’s experience is going to degrade and we don’t think it’s a product that we want to spend a lot of resources on.”
AT&T CEO John Stankey said early last year that fixed wireless still plays an important role for rural Americans.
Fixed wireless products use cellular airwaves to deliver internet to the home. It is a product that AT&T delivers to customers in rural and remote areas, which are regions that are otherwise financially difficult to connect with fiber.
It also has been the subject of reports and at the center of heated debates over whether governments should plow federal funds into such builds in an effort to connect the entire nation to high-speed internet. When the Federal Communications Commission, for example, announced its initial awards from its $9.2 billion Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, critics panned its decision to award large amounts to fixed wireless technologies because of alleged unproven high-speed promises.
On review, the commission even revoked the RDOF money initially awarded to LTD Broadband – one of the largest initial recipients of the fund – because it didn’t think it was “reasonably capable of deploying a network of the scope, scale, and size” required by its bids.
Last week, fixed wireless service provider Starry filed for bankruptcy.
Fiber favored by federal government’s broadband build
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which is the administrator of the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program, has already said that it favors fiber builds, but state recipients of the funds must consider all types of builds. The NTIA is expected to deliver the funds to the states by June 30.
“Candidly, we’d much rather take our resources, focus on deploying more fiber,” Desroches said, adding the company is exploring using spectrum to experiment and deliver new services.
“Let’s not get distracted by chasing empty calories in the near term,” he said.
On that front, Desroches said the company has exceeded its own expectations on how far it can drive fiber in its own footprint, saying that it is penetrating at twice the level compared to the first year of its plan. The company said it expects to bring 30 million or more households inside its footprint fiber over the “next several years.”
“This is a product that is durable, the maintenance associated with it is much more attractive than our copper footprint,” Desroches said.
Desroches also said the company’s joint venture with investment firm BlackRock to build fiber outside of its footprint could be expanded if things prove out as the company expects. The two companies are splitting the equity investment equally.
And the plan to plow fiber inside and outside of its footprint is expected to be accelerated, he said, with the money coming from the NTIA’s BEAD program.
“We are going to be able to capitalize on that money coming to the marketplace over the next several years at an accelerated pace versus if we had just done it ourselves,” he said.
Fiber
STL Opens South Carolina Fiber Cable Plant
The $100 million plant was announced in June 2023 as part of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to America.

WASHINGTON, September 15, 2023 – STL on Friday opened a new fiber-optic cable manufacturing plant in Lugoff, South Carolina.
The India-based company, which is officially Sterlite Technologies Limited, announced a $100 million investment in the plant after Narendra Modi, the country’s prime minister, visited with President Joe Biden in June of this year.
According to the company, the plant will facilitate $150 million annually in optical fiber exports from India.
The company is one of several to announce investments in American fiber-optic cable manufacturing, with major manufacturer Corning announcing a new North Carolina plant in June and Prysmian converting a Tennessee plant from copper to cable production.
Nokia also announced in August a Wisconsin plant that will manufacture electronic components necessary for deploying fiber networks.
The investments can be attributed in part to a provision of the Infrastructure, Investment and Jobs Act: The Build America, Buy America rule, which places two requirements on federally funded projects. It requires that 55 percent of the component cost must be spent with American suppliers, and materials must be manufactured in the United States.
Ahead of the disbursement of funds under the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program, broadband providers will be looking to source infrastructure equipment from vendors that comply with the rule.
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration is proposing a partial waiver to the BABA rule for BEAD-funded projects. The waiver would do away with the 55 percent component cost rule, as the semiconductors and integrated circuits that make up much of the cost of fiber equipment are manufactured in Southeast Asia.
The comment period for the proposed waiver is open until September 21.
Open Access
Gigapower Exec Pitches Value of Open Access Networks to Maximize BEAD Money Efficiency
The open access model allows multiple ISPs to use the same infrastructure. That could benefit Gigapower.

WASHINGTON, September 13, 2023 – Gigapower is in talks with state broadband offices about potentially building out open access infrastructure with grants from the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program, the company’s CEO said Wednesday.
“I think that when the time comes for BEAD, this platform will be a perfect fit,” Bill Hogg, the company’s CEO, said at a Broadband Breakfast Live Online event.
That’s because consumers could still choose from multiple internet providers offering different services at different price points, all on BEAD-funded Gigapower infrastructure, Hogg pitched. The traditional ISP-owned infrastructure model would only bring service from the provider that won a state contract to expand their network, he claimed.
“They like the idea that multiple ISPs will be able to bring choice to their constituents,” he said of state broadband officials. “They don’t have to pick a winner or a loser.”
Gigapower, a joint venture between AT&T and the investment firm BlackRock, is already slated to build a 1.5-million-location open access network. That means it will own and operate a fiber network while allowing multiple internet service providers to use that network to connect individual homes and businesses.
Spawned from the Infrastructure, Investment, and Jobs Act, the BEAD program allocates $42.5 billion to subsidize broadband infrastructure – primarily fiber – in areas that still lack adequate internet service because of geographical barriers or low population density. After submitting initial proposals by the end of the year, states will be able to start doling out this money to fund projects.
Gigapower is actively looking to add more service providers to its lineup, Hogg said.
“We fully intend to have other ISPs on the network,” he said. “We’re having good discussions with potential future tenants.”
Benefits of open access
AT&T will be the first tenant on the open access network, part of its deal with Blackrock. The telecom is looking to reach more people as quickly as possible, said Erin Scarborough, its president of broadband and connectivity, but building out fiber is costly and expensive. Making use of a network outside the company’s existing infrastructure will make it easier to expand into new areas and was a key motivator for investing in the project.
“That’s one of the key tenets of this agreement and why we were looking to do it,” Scarborough said.
The open access model is a departure from the norm in American telecommunications. There are regional open access networks like Utah’s UTOPIA Fiber, but large ISPs have traditionally opted for the security of owning and operating their own networks.
“When you start thinking about operating more efficiently with less capital, sharing networks has always made sense,” Hogg said. “We think that this model is going to break down the historical bias telecos have had about not controlling all the assets.”
Despite the company’s investment in the project and first-provider status, Scarborough and Hogg were emphatic that AT&T will not have a management role over the network.
“We are the network operator,” Hogg said of Gigapower. “We own the assets. We own the negotiation for the commercial terms.”
Our Broadband Breakfast Live Online events take place on Wednesday at 12 Noon ET. Watch the event on Broadband Breakfast, or REGISTER HERE to join the conversation.
Wednesday, September 13, 2023 – AT&T and BlackRock’s Gigapower Joint Venture
In December 2022, AT&T and BlackRock, through a fund managed by its Diversified Infrastructure business, jointly invested in the Gigapower joint venture that is expected to build fiber connectivity to an initial 1.5 million customer locations beyond AT&T’s current footprint. Notably, AT&T will rely on a commercial wholesale open access platform, where multiple providers share space and compete for customers over the same fiber infrastructure. Could Gigapower alter the historical reluctance of U.S. telcos toward such networks? How will the deployment impact open access projects throughout the United States? Get the facts from this special Broadband Breakfast Live Online event.
Panelists:
- Bill Hogg, CEO of Gigapower
- Erin Scarborough, President, Broadband and Connectivity Initiatives at AT&T
- Adam Waltz, Managing Director at BlackRock Infrastructure
- Roger Entner, Founder and Lead Analyst of Recon Analytics
- Drew Clark (moderator), Editor and Publisher, Broadband Breakfast
Adam Waltz is a Managing Director in BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Fund focused on investments in digital infrastructure opportunities across fiber networks, data centers, and wireless infrastructure. He serves as a Board Director at Gigapower, BlackRock’s joint venture with AT&T to develop a commercial wholesale open access platform on a state-of-the-art fiber network.
Bill Hogg leads Gigapower, an open access, wholesale fiber broadband company that builds and operates fiber solutions lit for fast connectivity and designed for network resiliency and reliability. Bill retired as President, AT&T Technology Operations, and was responsible for all planning, investment, engineering, construction, delivery, and assurance of AT&T’s wireless and wireline networks. Previously, Bill served as President-Technology Development, responsible for the development of AT&T’s products and services, digital experiences for customers, and systems supporting the operations across AT&T’s networks and services.
Erin Scarborough leads the team responsible for AT&T’s efforts to connect more Americans to greater possibility through fiber and wireless 5G investment initiatives, participating in government funding programs and public private partnerships. She and her team are taking a strategic, state-by-state approach working closely with state and local governments as they assess their broadband access, affordability and adoption needs. She also leads the combined broadband and mobility product management teams and has cross-functional responsibility for product profitability, pricing, customer experience, product design, multi-year roadmaps, development, and value-add services across the product portfolios.
Roger Entner advises telecom, media and technology companies on strategic and tactical business as well as public policy issues to allow them to compete better in the marketplace. Some of the challenges he helped to address are mobile market trends and business drivers and how to position themselves for growth and profitability, TMT convergence, bundling, changes in media consumption, software-defined networking, transition from MVNO to MNO, as well as providing the evidence and arguments for light touch wireless regulation and spectrum allocation for 5G. Under Roger’s leadership, Recon Analytics has launched the fastest and most agile telecom insights service based on more than 400,000 respondents across consumer mobile, home internet and business telecom customers.
Breakfast Media LLC CEO Drew Clark has led the Broadband Breakfast community since 2008. An early proponent of better broadband, better lives, he initially founded the Broadband Census crowdsourcing campaign for broadband data. As Editor and Publisher, Clark presides over the leading media company advocating for higher-capacity internet everywhere through topical, timely and intelligent coverage. Clark also served as head of the Partnership for a Connected Illinois, a state broadband initiative.
As with all Broadband Breakfast Live Online events, the FREE webcasts will take place at 12 Noon ET on Wednesday.
SUBSCRIBE to the Broadband Breakfast YouTube channel. That way, you will be notified when events go live. Watch on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.
See a complete list of upcoming and past Broadband Breakfast Live Online events.
#broadbandlive
Broadband Breakfast on September 13, 2023 – AT&T and BlackRock’s Gigapower Joint Venture
Gigapower CEO Bill Hogg and AT&T President Erin Scarborough headline event.

See Gigapower Exec Pitches Value of Open Access Networks to Maximize BEAD Money Efficiency, Broadband Breakfast, September 13, 2023
Our Broadband Breakfast Live Online events take place on Wednesday at 12 Noon ET. Watch the event on Broadband Breakfast, or REGISTER HERE to join the conversation in the webinar.
Wednesday, September 13, 2023 – AT&T and BlackRock’s Gigapower Joint Venture
In December 2022, AT&T and BlackRock, through a fund managed by its Diversified Infrastructure business, jointly invested in the Gigapower joint venture that is expected to build fiber connectivity to an initial 1.5 million customer locations beyond AT&T’s current footprint. Notably, AT&T will rely on a commercial wholesale open access platform, where multiple providers share space and compete for customers over the same fiber infrastructure. Could Gigapower alter the historical reluctance of U.S. telcos toward such networks? How will the deployment impact open access projects throughout the United States? Get the facts from this special Broadband Breakfast Live Online event.
Panelists:
- Bill Hogg, CEO of Gigapower
- Erin Scarborough, President, Broadband and Connectivity Initiatives at AT&T
- Adam Waltz, Managing Director at BlackRock Infrastructure
- Roger Entner, Founder and Lead Analyst of Recon Analytics
- Drew Clark (moderator), Editor and Publisher, Broadband Breakfast
Adam Waltz is a Managing Director in BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Fund focused on investments in digital infrastructure opportunities across fiber networks, data centers, and wireless infrastructure. He serves as a Board Director at Gigapower, BlackRock’s joint venture with AT&T to develop a commercial wholesale open access platform on a state-of-the-art fiber network.
Bill Hogg leads Gigapower, an open access, wholesale fiber broadband company that builds and operates fiber solutions lit for fast connectivity and designed for network resiliency and reliability. Bill retired as President, AT&T Technology Operations, and was responsible for all planning, investment, engineering, construction, delivery, and assurance of AT&T’s wireless and wireline networks. Previously, Bill served as President-Technology Development, responsible for the development of AT&T’s products and services, digital experiences for customers, and systems supporting the operations across AT&T’s networks and services.
Erin Scarborough leads the team responsible for AT&T’s efforts to connect more Americans to greater possibility through fiber and wireless 5G investment initiatives, participating in government funding programs and public private partnerships. She and her team are taking a strategic, state-by-state approach working closely with state and local governments as they assess their broadband access, affordability and adoption needs. She also leads the combined broadband and mobility product management teams and has cross-functional responsibility for product profitability, pricing, customer experience, product design, multi-year roadmaps, development, and value-add services across the product portfolios.
Roger Entner advises telecom, media and technology companies on strategic and tactical business as well as public policy issues to allow them to compete better in the marketplace. Some of the challenges he helped to address are mobile market trends and business drivers and how to position themselves for growth and profitability, TMT convergence, bundling, changes in media consumption, software-defined networking, transition from MVNO to MNO, as well as providing the evidence and arguments for light touch wireless regulation and spectrum allocation for 5G. Under Roger’s leadership, Recon Analytics has launched the fastest and most agile telecom insights service based on more than 400,000 respondents across consumer mobile, home internet and business telecom customers.
Breakfast Media LLC CEO Drew Clark has led the Broadband Breakfast community since 2008. An early proponent of better broadband, better lives, he initially founded the Broadband Census crowdsourcing campaign for broadband data. As Editor and Publisher, Clark presides over the leading media company advocating for higher-capacity internet everywhere through topical, timely and intelligent coverage. Clark also served as head of the Partnership for a Connected Illinois, a state broadband initiative.
As with all Broadband Breakfast Live Online events, the FREE webcasts will take place at 12 Noon ET on Wednesday.
SUBSCRIBE to the Broadband Breakfast YouTube channel. That way, you will be notified when events go live. Watch on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.
See a complete list of upcoming and past Broadband Breakfast Live Online events.
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