AT&T is upgrading the speeds of its Fiber home internet plans

AT&T is giving its Fiber home internet customers a speed boost. On Monday the telecom giant announced changes to its home internet offerings that should give those with the service faster internet speeds without a change in price. 

As part of the move, the carrier’s 100Mbps home internet plan will be going away, with 300Mbps now becoming the company’s slowest internet plan. The midtier plan will move from 300Mbps speeds to 500Mbps while the top option remains at 1Gbps. AT&T, like some other fiber broadband options, offers symmetrical speeds for downloads and uploads. The company also does not have any data caps. 

Customers who currently have 100Mbps internet plans will be automatically upgraded to the new 300Mbps plan at no extra charge, and AT&T will also bump up those on 300Mbps plans to the 500Mbps option. The carrier tells CNET that the upgrade process will start in June; the company plans to notify customers by email, physical mail or text message once they’ve been upgraded. 

With the switch, AT&T’s home internet plans are as follows for new customers in their first year: 

• Internet 300: $35 per month for a year for 300Mbps 
• Internet 500: $45 per month for a year for 500Mbps 
• Internet 1000: $60 per month for a year for 1Gbps, includes HBO Max

Note that the pricing factors in AutoPay and paperless billing but doesn’t include taxes or fees, such as the unavoidable $10-per-month equipment fee (AT&T still requires its customers to lease a modem). After one year the bill will rise to a “prevailing rate,” but the company does not specify what that rate is on its website.   

The new speed tiers come amid renewed competition in the home broadband arena, including from rival wireless carriers T-Mobile and Verizon, which have been upping their respective home internet services using 4G LTE and 5G networks. AT&T is preparing for a big expansion of its Fiber home broadband in 2021, announcing at its analyst day in March that it was looking to build out its home broadband footprint with the addition of 3 million new fiber locations this year and potentially another 4 million locations in 2022.