I don’t know if this AT&T service covered all of NY but for sake of my point I’m going to assume it covers most to all of NY. Obviously, not everyone would subscribe to AT&T either. I’m generalizing a bit to make a point.
There are approx 8.5 mil households in NY and 1.7 mil qualified for the previous affordable broadband law (couldn’t find an exact number for this current law).
If they charge $60 for the service that’s a potential total of $512,000,000 for NY.
If 1.7 mil get broadband for $15 that’s $25,500,000.
So AT&T is willing to give up a potential $487,000,00 from all other NY customers just to spite low income families.
Note: this is income before any AT&T expenses, just to be clear and fair.
I’ve also been involved in something similar. It costs a lot to expand infrastructure. Part of my job would be to plan and explain the costs associated with that. Wireless still needs a wired connection, and wireless still has connection limitations. You can’t just add more users and expect things to work. And you can’t just plop another receiver without it interfering with the others. It needs to be properly planned and something as simple as a building’s signal reflectivity can mess an entire project up. More towers, more equipment, more redundancy, more personnel, more cables, more power, and forking all the money to do all this within the time limit or face fines is a huge task. And that’s assuming it could even work on a technical level, sometimes you just can’t do things (don’t want to interfere with FAA requirements and such) and people don’t understand.
I hate ATT too, but from a purely financial and planning point of view, I’ve been there. You can’t just snap some fingers and make things happen just like that.
I don’t know if this AT&T service covered all of NY but for sake of my point I’m going to assume it covers most to all of NY. Obviously, not everyone would subscribe to AT&T either. I’m generalizing a bit to make a point.
There are approx 8.5 mil households in NY and 1.7 mil qualified for the previous affordable broadband law (couldn’t find an exact number for this current law).
If they charge $60 for the service that’s a potential total of $512,000,000 for NY.
If 1.7 mil get broadband for $15 that’s $25,500,000.
So AT&T is willing to give up a potential $487,000,00 from all other NY customers just to spite low income families.
Note: this is income before any AT&T expenses, just to be clear and fair.
Old cable guy here. The cost is in laying the lines. That cost is astronomical. AT&T did the math, said, “Fuck it. Not worth it.”
Call 'em evil, but they’re not stupid.
They aren’t laying lines though. It’s the Internet Air program which provides it through 5g.
And where’s does 5g come from
I’ve also been involved in something similar. It costs a lot to expand infrastructure. Part of my job would be to plan and explain the costs associated with that. Wireless still needs a wired connection, and wireless still has connection limitations. You can’t just add more users and expect things to work. And you can’t just plop another receiver without it interfering with the others. It needs to be properly planned and something as simple as a building’s signal reflectivity can mess an entire project up. More towers, more equipment, more redundancy, more personnel, more cables, more power, and forking all the money to do all this within the time limit or face fines is a huge task. And that’s assuming it could even work on a technical level, sometimes you just can’t do things (don’t want to interfere with FAA requirements and such) and people don’t understand.
I hate ATT too, but from a purely financial and planning point of view, I’ve been there. You can’t just snap some fingers and make things happen just like that.