AT&T plans to double fiber footprint

March 14, 2022
Concurrently, the company plans to phase out its copper-based broadband infrastructure.

At the company’s 2022 Analyst & Investor Day held last Friday, AT&T executives laid out their investment plans for 2023. Those plans include significant focus on fiber and 5G, including increasing the service provider’s fiber footprint to more than 30 million locations by 2025, double the number passed as of the second quarter of 2021. Business locations passed should reach 5 million, also twice the previous benchmark.

To reach these goals, AT&T expects to add 3.5 million to 4 million customer locations each year. Concurrently, the company plans to phase out its copper-based broadband infrastructure. By 2025, AT&T believes that 75% of its network footprint will be served via fiber and 5G and that it will have reduced its copper services footprint by 50%.

Of course, such footprint expansion will cost money. In 2022, AT&T expects total capital expenditure (capex) of approximately $24 billion – a level it also will reach in 2023. Capex should then decline to the $20 billion range starting in 2024. During a call with analysts as part of the March 11, 2022, activities, Pascal Desroches, senior executive vice president and CFO of AT&T, indicated the company is spending approximately $3 billion to $4 billion annually on fiber broadband infrastructure deployment and he expects that to continue until the company reaches its 2025 homes passed target.

AT&T CEO and President John Stankey said on the same call his company expects to see a 5X increase in data transmitted over the company’s network over 5 years. Jeffery Scott McElfresh, CEO of AT&T Communications LLC, added that the monthly consumption of in-home customers will climb from today 900 GB to 4.6 TB 2025. Today’s residential customers consumes roughly 30X more data in the home than they do on their smartphones, he added.

“Now to be recognized as the best in tomorrow's hyperconnected world, we believe the network must start with a solid foundation of fiber, a foundation that isn't just fiber in the core of the network but is also in a dense distribution network with pervasive pathways of fiber serving customers out at the edge,” McElfresh stated. “We believe this fiber foundation is essential for a network to perform. To consistently deliver a great experience with greater ubiquity, reliability, and it must also have the capability to efficiently serve this increasing demand for high-quality bandwidth.”

For related articles, visit the FTTx Topic Center.

For more information on FTTx technology and suppliers, visit the Lightwave Buyer’s Guide.

To stay abreast of fiber network deployments, subscribe to Lightwave’s Service Providers and Datacom/Data Center newsletters.

About the Author

Stephen Hardy | Editorial Director and Associate Publisher, Lightwave

Stephen Hardy is editorial director and associate publisher of Lightwave and Broadband Technology Report, part of the Lighting & Technology Group at Endeavor Business Media. Stephen is responsible for establishing and executing editorial strategy across the both brands’ websites, email newsletters, events, and other information products. He has covered the fiber-optics space for more than 20 years, and communications and technology for more than 35 years. During his tenure, Lightwave has received awards from Folio: and the American Society of Business Press Editors (ASBPE) for editorial excellence. Prior to joining Lightwave in 1997, Stephen worked for Telecommunications magazine and the Journal of Electronic Defense.

Stephen has moderated panels at numerous events, including the Optica Executive Forum, ECOC, and SCTE Cable-Tec Expo. He also is program director for the Lightwave Innovation Reviews and the Diamond Technology Reviews.

He has written numerous articles in all aspects of optical communications and fiber-optic networks, including fiber to the home (FTTH), PON, optical components, DWDM, fiber cables, packet optical transport, optical transceivers, lasers, fiber optic testing, and more.

You can connect with Stephen on LinkedIn as well as Twitter.

Sponsored Recommendations

AI and Network Convergence: Transforming Global Connectivity

March 7, 2025
In today’s hyperconnected world, rolling out and managing profitable, high-performance networks for access and transport will require innovative architectural approaches. The ...

Transforming the metro network and the evolution of the "Digital Service Provider"

March 4, 2025
Join experts at EXFO and Ekinops in this webinar that will review the evolving metro-centric requirements and the technologies emerging to meet them.

Unveiling the Synergy Between AI and Optical Networking

March 12, 2025
Join us for an engaging discussion with industry experts on the intersection of AI and optics. Moderated by Sean Buckley, editor-in-chief of Lightwave+BTR, this panel will explore...

ON TOPIC: Filling Coverage Gaps, Enhancing Public Safety

Jan. 30, 2025
With the ongoing drive to support AI and the need for high-speed data center interconnection, the call for higher-speed 800G optical technology is emerging. Initially focused ...