In response to the news item... An inside look.
Much of the development for that project occured here in Saint Louis, MO. I worked on some of GIS related projects regarding this rollout. Internally the project is call 'Lightspeed'. The intial stages is massive rollout / utilization of fiber networks; essentially slamming fiber right up to the customers door step. New home development will have fiber practically connnecting to their refrigerator; existing homes will have FTTN (fiber to the node). That is fiber to the premis, copper the rest of the way in.
That project cost AT&T a lot of personnel. I resigned last summer from AT&T (then SBC) because of the fallout; lack of appreciation for the employees. If this product doesn't take off, sell your AT&T stock, they have leveraged much of their future on this project.
One funny note; upper management kept talking about the future of Internet Protocol TV... I kept hoping marketing would develope a better name, otherwise we will all have 'IPTV'.
