- AT&T changed its fiber tiers to better align with its wireless plans
- An AT&T exec said the company wants to make it simpler for consumers to buy its fiber broadband
- It retired its 100 Mbps broadband plan and replaced it with 300 Mbps
DALLAS, TEXAS — AT&T is streamlining its fiber broadband home internet options. Beginning June 7, customers can choose from four AT&T Fiber speed options: 300 Mbps, 500 Mbps, 1 Gbps and 5 Gbps.
With the change AT&T retired its 100 Mbps plan, making 300 Mbps the entry point for fiber broadband service.
Fierce editors were in Dallas this week, speaking with AT&T executives, and they had the opportunity to meet Sarah Day, VP of Consumer, who recently began leading national pricing for all consumer products.
Of the new pricing for fiber, Day said, “The simplification is part of a broader portfolio effort to make sure that we're creating plan options that match the diverse needs of consumers in the market and give more choice. But also, we just want to simplify the way of buying.”
Anyone who follows AT&T knows that it’s been focused on two priorities: fiber and 5G. The company even recently changed the way it reports its earnings to focus on converged accounts. Day said the new pricing goes along with that convergence mindset.
“One of the things that was abundantly clear to us is, we had a set of wireless rate plans that were tiered in one way, and a set of wireline or broadband rate plans that were tiered in a different way,” she said. “And it made it a difficult purchasing experience for consumers who wanted to have AT&T for both. So, the first step was alignment of our broadband tiers to match our wireless tiers so that there were more parallels and it made it simpler.”
In terms of retiring the 100 Mbps speed tier and making the 300 Mbps tier the new entry point, Day said that reflects the demand from consumers.
“We want to make sure that we are delivering great value at the entry points of our plans – and as consumers have more devices, use more video and AI services, we felt 300 meg was an entry point best suited to growing consumer demand,” said Day.
The main priority is to drive convergence, and Day said shifting speed tiers to align across wireless and fiber makes that easier for consumers.
AT&T is making significant investments in both its wireless and fiber networks. “We want to make sure that the consumer sees AT&T as their total communications provider,” she said.
Making it harder for customers to churn
Day didn’t say anything about AT&T fighting off the competition, but a report this week from Oppenheimer analysts said that AT&T's “massive” wireline footprint puts it at risk from satellite low-earth-orbit (LEO) constellations, making it vulnerable to subscriber migration.
“We are concerned the industry is underestimating the risk of satellite as cable did with [fixed wireless access] and will treat it as a purely complementary service to mobile and a low-quality fixed broadband alternative reserved for the most remote markets,” said Oppenheimer’s Timothy Horan.
But AT&T's focus on convergence — where subscribers take both its fiber broadband and mobile services — will likely make it a bit harder for consumers to switch to a satellite provider. They can also realize some savings with the new pricing.
