AT&T to Expand U-verse to 33 Million Homes

Rollout part of telco's $14 billion additional capex over next three years

By Todd Spangler, Multichannel News -- Broadcasting & Cable, 11/7/2012 1:50:35 PM

AT&T still isn't planning to roll out fiber-to-the-home in any broad way, as Verizon Communications has.

As part of a three-year, $14 billion capital investment plan, AT&T said it will widen its fiber-based U-verse network by more than one-third -- or about 8.5 million additional customer locations, for a total potential of 33 million homes -- by the end of 2015, while boosting downstream Internet speeds to up to 75 Mbps.

The telco outlined the plan, dubbed Project Velocity IP (VIP), Wednesday at its annual investor day in New York. Project VIP includes efforts to expand and enhance both its wireless and wireline IP broadband networks.

AT&T expects capital spending to be approximately $22 billion for each of the next three years, then return to pre-Project VIP levels. The telco said it will increase capital spending to the "high end of the mid-teens" as a percentage of revenue in the next two years, returning to previous levels in 2015. The company last month said it anticipates capex for 2012 to come in at "the low end" of the $19 billion to $20 billion range.

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