Following recent upgrades, AT&T has booted up a new U-verse broadband tier that pumps out 75 Mbps downstream in “select areas” of Monterey and Sacramento, Calif.; Toledo, Ohio; and El Paso, Texas.
The introductory price for the new offering, which is paired with an 8 Mbps upstream path, starts at $74.95 per month as a stand-alone service, and as low as $39.95 per month when bundled with other AT&T services.
Next year, AT&T plans to expand availability of that faster tier in those initial markets and across the 21 states where AT&T offers high-speed Internet service today, Bob Bickerstaff, AT&T’s VP of voice & data products, noted in this blog post.
The initial wave of upgrades will hit markets served by Comcast (Monterey and Sacramento), Buckeye CableSystem (Toledo), and Time Warner Cable (El Paso).
Bickerstaff said the new 75 Mbps offering, which is enabled through upgrades delivered via a new 17 MHz signal, twice the original 8.5 MHz that was used, “isn’t just designed for techies and online gaming enthusiasts…Speeds up to 75Mbps are ideal for homes with multiple devices and for gaming and streaming video.”
The new 75-meg tier joins other U-verse options that offer downstream speeds of 6 Mbps, 12 Mbps, 18 Mbps, 24 Mbps, and 45 Mbps. AT&T also offers 100 Mbps and 1-Gig options in areas where it has begun to roll fiber-based GigaPower platform (pockets of Carrboro, Cary, Chapel Hill, Raleigh and Winston-Salem N.C.; and Austin and Dallas/Ft. Worth, Texas.)
AT&T ended the third quarter with 12.1 million U-verse broadband subs, representing 73% of all AT&T wireline customers.
