"This expanded investment is not expected to materially alter AT&T’s anticipated 2013 capital expenditures."

This is what pisses me off. Telcos have the capability and it won't even hit them that hard, financially. They just want to drag their feet to eek out whatever extra sliver of profit they can out of the current status quo.

In big-co speak that could mean either it's close to free, or they're rearranging their capex to prioritize Austin in order to compete (e.g. someone else isn't getting upgrades)

Or that AT&T already has a TON of fiber in the ground in Austin, from back in the 90s.

Even if they have dark or underutilized fiber it doesn't mean that it's a 0 expenditure. So you don't have to rip up the street, but optics are pretty expensive. That's not even counting a need for new switches if it's not 1 Gbps capable.

So they're aiming for the suburbs (where they already have FTTN) before Google has a chance to roll out from the city. This is gonna be good. Microwaving my popcorn already.