It’s tough work chasing Google.
AT&T is going on a hiring binge in North Carolina. According to a press release it issued on Friday…
AT&T today announced it is looking to fill nearly 100 new technician positions in North Carolina…
In North Carolina, AT&T launched U-verse with AT&T GigaPower Dec. 8 in Carrboro, Cary, Chapel Hill, Raleigh and Winston-Salem, and also plans to bring the service to Durham, Charlotte and Greensboro. U-verse with AT&T GigaPower provides customers access to the fastest Internet available from AT&T, featuring speeds up to 1 gigabit per second.
In addition to its technician positions, AT&T is looking to fill nearly 200 business sales and call center positions in North Carolina.
If those towns sound familiar, it’s because Google announced it was bringing fiber to the home service to most of them (Winston-Salem and Greensboro weren’t on Google’s list).
If you read it carefully, you’ll notice that AT&T isn’t exactly promising to match Google’s gigabit service levels. There’s even a big, fat asterisk attached to AT&T “up to” qualifier…
Speed/time estimates are examples. Internet speed claims represent maximum network service capability speeds. Actual customer speeds may vary and are not guaranteed.
So the GigaWeasel lives on. But 300 new hires is significant. Whether or not AT&T actually delivers a gig, it clearly intends to meet Google’s competitive challenge head on by upgrading service. As it and others – including, quite prominently , Comcast and Charter – have reliably done when presented with a credible threat.