AT&T expands Houston coverage of fiber-optic internet

As is the case with too many Houston residents — maybe even you —  I didn’t have many choices when it came to modern, high-speed internet. In 2018 we moved into a condo community and to get connected, we could either sign up for Comcast’s Xfinity service, which is fast, or AT&T’s legacy DSL-based Uverse service, which is not. AT&T’s zippier fiber-optic service just wasn’t available.

So, Comcast it was. I’ve been a subscriber since cable internet first rolled into town, initially under the Time Warner Road Runner banner in the 1990s, and I stuck with it when Comcast took over the Houston territory. I’ve been enjoying gigabit speeds with them in my current swankienda, but only because AT&T’s offering — which maxes out at a paltry 55 megabits per second downloads — was not competitive.

But now, that has changed.

Earlier this year, AT&T began a monthlong process of rewiring the three buildings in our complex for fiber-optic internet. This week, the service was finally turned on and my neighbors and I finally have real high-speed options.

For privacy reasons, I’m not naming the complex. But it’s a trio of big buildings, with well over 200 privately owned units, inside Loop 610. Built in the early 1990s, the property went condo a decade later. There are many such places like it in the Houston area, both condos and apartment buildings, with outdated communications infrastructure that would be expensive and logistically difficult to upgrade.

In some cases, particularly where apartment buildings are involved, there’s only one provider of cable TV and/or internet service. The complex owner has contracted with a provider, perhaps the same one since it was built, to provide services and residents don’t have a choice. In other instances, such as where I live, there is more than one provider, but the wiring of at least one doesn’t support 21st century needs.

Why does that matter? Because if a customer is unhappy with the service they are getting, for whatever reason, they may not have any recourse other than to grin an bear it.

Cable internet providers have an advantage because the use of coaxial cable allows for faster speeds than telecom ISPs whose thinner wires — originally designed to carry voice communications — are limited in the bandwidth they can provide. That’s why phone providers such as AT&T are aggressively moving to fiber optic internet, which has big advantages — for now — over cable.

AT&T has been installing fiber as fast as it can since it launched in Houston nine years ago. But even today there are big chunks of the area that don’t yet have it, and residents there are left with ’90s-era Uverse, or even older DSL. AT&T recently launched Internet Air, which follows Verizon and T-Mobile in offering wireless home internet service using its cellular 5G network.

But even that is no match for what fiber-optic internet can do. Unlike cable and DSL, upload and download speeds are the same. In contrast, unless Comcast customers in Houston are using specific equipment and live in areas where the network has been upgraded, most folks here have upload speeds of around 20 Mbps. (Upgrades and newer routers/modems get you 100 Mbps uploads.)

To increase its fiber footprint, AT&T is willing to upgrade some multi-tenant buildings for no cost to residents or building owners, the company said in a statement. Of course, the economics have to make sense: When the upgrade is complete, AT&T has to recover its costs and then some with enough subscribers at the property. And those costs can run well into the tens of thousands of dollars.

I joined the board of our homeowner association in late 2022. Previously I’d mentioned to the board and to the company that manages the property that AT&T might be willing to upgrade our buildings for free. I figured I might be able to get the ball rolling by becoming one of the five directors who’d make that decision.

I contacted AT&T and learned that, yes, the company would consider rewiring our property. A team paid a visit and did a site inspection, looking at the building’s layout, visiting some units and inspecting at the infrastructure near us. They crunched the numbers and said we were indeed a candidate.

AT&T reps met with residents during a town hall meeting and explained the process. As you’d expect in any community where there are many different viewpoints about home ownership and technology, there were a handful who were opposed — some vehemently so. But even though it would mean a bit of disruption, the board voted unanimously to proceed.

The wiring began in late January, and I learned a lot about how fiber-optic internet is installed and how labor-intensive it is to do in the three-and-a-half weeks it took to complete.

In our case, hundreds of feet of fiber cable were extended throughout the three buildings’ attics and dropped down through the walls from the top to the bottom floors. This involved drilling holes in locations that allowed the cable to go straight down, but still be in a place that made sense for a Wi-Fi router to be placed. The firewall material in our attics was pierced to run the cables, but it was resealed with fireproof putty.

The contractors AT&T hired used drills with long, flexible bits to pierce wood between floors, and small cameras made sure there were few surprises in those walls. They cut holes in drywall the size of electric outlets where needed for the fiber connection.

I also learned that fiber-optic cable is very, very delicate. The supervising installer said they have to be very careful pulling it through attics, particularly in buildings like ours that have turns. Pull cable too fast through the holes in the firewalls and friction can cause heat that melts the glass filaments. The glass inside the sheathing can easily break, as well.

The best part: Installers use a very cool device that splices the cable from the wall to the connector in each unit using intense heat. The ends of the fiber are placed into the machine, the top closed, and a camera display shows them being aligned and then fused, complete with a dramatic flash of light. I have absolutely no use for this device, but I want one!

All of the cables — one for each individual unit — exited through holes in the roof eaves and run through drainspout-style conduits to junction boxes installed on the exterior walls. Those were connected to AT&T’s network.

I ordered my service on Wednesday, and by the time you read this — if all goes well — I’ll have one of AT&T’s combo fiber terminal and router in my unit. I’m keeping my Comcast service for at least a month, and will run the two networks side-by-side. Look for a comparative review coming soon.