The growing rule of thumb for telcos pondering fiber-to-home upgrades is whether the business model works, especially in a context where internet access is the mainstay of the business, and a major support for what remains of the voice business, is the take rate.
The consensus is that when take rates are about 40 percent, the FTTH upgrade is worth doing. That might also have been the case in years past, but many telcos had enough leverage (debt) that priority for available cash flow had to be debt reduction, rather than network upgrades.
Now that most telcos have deleveraged themselves, more cash flow is available for other purposes, including network investment. This is true not only for AT&T, but for other fixed network providers as well.
This is perhaps most obvious in the cases of Windstream and Frontier Communications, for example. Lumen Technologies has divested about half its largely-rural fixed network assets, though some would note this actually will reduce free cash flow, albeit allowing Lumen to concentrate on a footprint that is smaller and better suited to FTTH business cases.
The potential big change is market share possibly to be gained by AT&T. Frontier Communications arguably will be a significant potential source of net account additions as well.
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