AT&T’s Support Of ‘Open Access’ Fiber Competition Is A Head Fake, Community Owned ISP Says

We’ve talked repeatedly how one way to boost lagging U.S. broadband competition is the support of “open access” fiber networks that allow numerous ISPs to compete over a centralized fiber network. In ideal implementations, like Ammon, Idaho or in parts of Utah, residents have the option of switching between multiple, competing ISPs, sometimes in a matter of moments via a web portal.

We talked extensively about this model in a 2022 report on U.S. broadband competition.

Big telecom giants like AT&T and Verizon have traditionally hated this model because it brings competition to bear on their captive markets, forcing them to compete on coverage, price, speed, service quality, and customer service. But last year AT&T began making noise that it was considering changing its tune and would now be supporting open access under what it’s calling its “Gigapower” joint venture.

What changed AT&T’s mind? One motivator may be the record $42.5 billion in taxpayer subsidies that will soon start flowing to U.S. states as part of the 2021 infrastructure bill. Groups like the EFF have argued that if taxpayer money is going to be spent on fiber expansion, it should be open access fiber networks that not only expand access, but also boost competition and drive down costs.

That’s not in line with AT&T shareholder value, which benefits from the company’s relentless efforts to crush both regional competition and federal and state oversight,

Community owned ISPs that have been building open access networks for decades, like Utah’s massive UTOPIA project, say they believe that AT&T’s dedication to open access is a head fake. UTOPIA Fiber CEO Roger Timmerman says AT&T is building what it promises will be open access infrastructure, then ensuring that it’s the only provider that can actually use it:

“I would not describe AT&T’s Gigapower as open access. Once an end user can subscribe to multiple operators on that system then it’s open access. Right now, it’s not even really wholesale. AT&T is the only end user on it.”

UTOPIA’s network, for example, offers residents in its 20 partner cities access to fiber (at speeds up to 10 Gbps) from nineteen different ISPs. What AT&T appears to be doing is building more traditional wholesale fiber access, then dressing it up as open access to better position itself for billions in taxpayer subsidies. It’s a very AT&T move from a company historically criticized for misleading its subscribers.

Timmerman is quick to note that AT&T wants the kudos and subsidies that come from building open access networks, but it doesn’t want the actual competition:

“They don’t want 10 local providers competing,” he said. “They specifically said in conversations I’ve had, they don’t want the little guys. It’s too much of a hassle.”

Enter Republicans, who voted against the infrastructure bill in question, yet routinely take credit for its benefits. They’re going to spend much of this year taking credit for state broadband deployments they tried to prevent, while redirecting money away from smaller, community-owned open access fiber networks, and toward Trump earlobe nibblers like AT&T and Elon Musk.

So whereas a lot of that money could have been used to dramatically scale up U.S. broadband competition, history suggests it will instead be used to line the pockets of telecom companies that express suitable fealty to MAGA authoritarians. Money that could go to useful community owned ventures with a local, vested interest in the communities they service, will be redirected to monopolies like AT&T, or expensive options that don’t scale like Starlink.

This will, as certainly as the sun sets, be then portrayed by Republicans (and a lazy, broken press) as everything from “populism” to “innovation,” when cronyism would be a far more fitting term.