xpxp2002 Yes, I imagine Armstrong is already feeling the AT&T competition. They are now offering “Zoom” for $49.95 for 1 year, I believe that’s 500mbps. They’re going to want to start thinking about offering 1gbps for that price.
As far as current activity, here is what I have seen in the last few weeks:
Armstrong continues to upgrade parts of Boardman, Poland, and Canfield. It seems like their outer reach areas of the legacy HFC system has been finished (Mineral Ridge, McDonald, most of Austintown, etc). They are on the home stretch towards North Lima now.
Lumos continues to work in the greater Youngstown area. Numerous 811 tickets for boring around YSU and surrounding areas. Visible fiber and splices for Lumos in Boardman around the 224, South Ave, Market St, and Southern Blvd areas.
Omni continues to focus on the northern parts of the area. They seemed to have started in Niles and are now focusing on the Girard, Liberty, and Hubbard areas. Any activity for Edgar Trent on 811 seems to be tied to the high-level Omni activity (before they start rolling out to last mile- putting in cabinets, etc). This activity is actively taking place along Rt. 46 in Mineral Ridge and into Austintown.
AT&T seems to have started a second wave. Visibly in Mineral Ridge, they are pushing around the area of County Line Rd and just finished the first half of Still Meadows. It seems most of the rest of Mineral Ridge was on phase 1 in 2022-2023. It was confirmed to me that County Line, the rest of Still meadows, and Country Meadows (my development) is in this wave and starting soon. There was a noticeable pause in 2024 in this area, but I noticed a lot of activity on the northern portions of their coverage area last year including Niles and the little bit of Howland they cover. Visibly, a good chunk of Niles is finished or is being finished in this next wave. These areas being Spectrum monopolies. What I find interesting is the lack of initial (2022-2023) push by AT&T in these areas, although there has been visible Custom Ulticom activity taking place on Belmont Ave (AT&T’s) contractor. With Armstrong’s 2023 push, I am surprised AT&T didn’t initially focus more of their efforts in Spectrum areas.
Additionally, there is ongoing Comcast activity in Poland and parts of Boardman to add onto the system coming out of New Middletown, this is a big kick in the pecker to Armstrong.
I am going to agree with your 2-3 timeline on options and pricing. I think the landscape looks that most in the Youngstown market will have 3-4 options by 2029 or 2030.
And yes, ADSL2+ (fake U-verse) was limited to the range of most CO DSLAMs. I don’t think any RT DSLAMs even got ADSL2+. At my address, nothing was ever offered beyond ADSL and it was RT fed. The area never saw VDSL (Real U-verse). Honestly, I am surprised AT&T didn’t just abandon the area to 5g.
Armstrong should consider a parternership with Verizon and start bundling some sort of mobile package. AT&T is giving deals on fiber and wireless that are basically no brainers. Tick…
