AT&T Uses Gfast to Dish Out Broadband to Boston

Google Fiber may have turned its back on Beantown, but AT&T is dishing out high-speed Internet to some apartment-dwelling Bostonians via Gfast.

The Massachusetts city is the second metropolitan area where AT&T has launched a Gfast property outside its traditional 21-state home Internet service area, according to AT&T. The provider is deploying Gfast at the upscale Meriel Marina Bay apartment complex, offering speeds of up to 500Mbit/s.

Gfast, which delivers high-speed broadband via copper or coax that typically is already installed in individual apartment or condo units, has an upgrade path to gigabit or 2Gbp/s speeds. Because it uses fiber-to-the-basement, it's often touted as the first level of a provider's fiber-to-the-home strategy, too. (See Gfast Comes of Age: Heavy Reading Report and ADTRAN Gfast-to-the-Basement Opportunities Soar.)

"With Gfast we can connect more Boston area residents to information, entertainment and their community," said Ed Balcerzak, senior vice president of AT&T Connected Communities. "We're committed to providing connectivity to MDU residents in Boston. And we’ll do it through Gfast and millimeter wave."

AT&T began offering Gfast with Internet connections of up to 500Mbit/s to MDUs in eight of its 21-state service area and announced plans to offer this option to an additional 14 metro out-of-area regions, the company said.

Earlier this month, Google parent Alphabet said WebPass was leaving Boston after the company analyzed data generated after its 2016 acquisition of the point-to-point wireless broadband provider (See Google Fiber Exits Beantown .)

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— Alison Diana, Editor, Broadband World News. Follow us on Twitter or @alisoncdiana.

(Home page image source: Meriel Marina Bay)