By Phil Harvey; Light Reading ~ Oct 14, 2022
DALLAS – Earlier this month, AT&T gave a few journalists a chance to see what the telecom network of 100 years ago looked like (some of it is still operational). We also got to hear what the near future holds for AT&T’s edge computing plans, which aim to blend its fiber and 5G networks to power a world-beating portfolio of network services.
As a nod to its past, our hosts whisked us through a Dallas central office located in a neighborhood between Deep Ellum and Lower Greenville. It was a cathedral of no-excuses, always-on connectivity.
Sitting at the ready are rooms of backup batteries and entire buildings housing industrial gas-powered generators. There are rows of switches, servers and what looked like thousands of miles of wires that, at this moment, no one needs at all. But, when needed, the whole operation cranks up and crackles to life, so the people on the other end of hundreds of thousands of regional phone and broadband connections never know the difference.
AT&T seems eager to return to those more industrial roots, but only in its attitude and focus. Technology is remarkably different now, but the drive to connect everyone with resilient networks is constant. The carrier’s newly promoted executives, several of whom have arrived from other industries, see AT&T as a company focused on 5G and fiber.