Why did they skip the inside of my square?

Maybe the developer didn't have an agreement with AT&T to run fiber to that development. AT&T can't just install fiber where ever they want to.

Is there any way I can ever get an answer that doesn't start with "maybe"?

fwiw, this neighborhood was built out in the 1950s, and there's no HOA, so no developer to negotiate with. If there's another party, I'd have to think it's just the city.

Hi @srlamb

We are happy to see your interest with AT&T Fiber Internet. Let's get the help you need.

To get service, AT&T Internet equipment has to be in the area. In some instances, it isn't. As above, this could mean a neighbor may have it, but service was not expanded to your home. We do not have information if or when it will be.

We are continually expanding our fiber footprint to more households every day. If you’d like to check if service is available to you now or to sign up for a notification if it does become available in the future, please visit att.com/NotifyMe . We will send you a notification via your preferred method as soon as AT&T Fiber becomes available to you.

Thank you for contacting AT&T Community Forums,

Maria, AT&T Community Specialist.

@srlamb  Maybe or possibly is probably the best you're going to get out of AT&T. They don't announce what they are going to do to the public until the process has started. Does anybody else in your specific area have fiber from another provider? If so, I'd consider them if fiber is important to you and not wait for AT&T.

No, AT&T is the only fiber provider in my neighborhood. Some people have sonic, but I gather it's ultimately delivered on AT&T lines, and possibly only grandfathered service anyway.

@srlamb  Sonic? Are you up in the Santa Rosa area or San Jose? We had Sonic DSL years ago in San Jose that was on the old AT&T copper lines. Probably the most reliable internet connection we ever had. Much better than anything that AT&T could provide. When we moved out of state we kept the Sonic email account because it runs circles around what AT&T provides (Yahoo). For $6 per month it's one of the best email providers you can get.

I'm in Mountain View. Currently sonic doesn't have anything at all listed. AT&T offers 3 Mbit/sec DSL service, but that's really not adequate these days for my household. 2 remote workers (heavy video chats), 2 kids (who we sometimes stick in front of a video stream while we're trying to work). And I'm a software developer who works on video, sometimes involving large downloads and uploads. My current Comcast Business Class cable service is nominally 75 Mbps down / 12 Mbps up, but I don't get that as consistently as I'd like.

@srlamb  We were out in the Evergreen Area of San Jose and had a rock solid 20Mbps down for Sonic DSL (on AT&T copper). Of course we were only about a mile from the CO and I jumped a direct line from the MPOE to the room that had the modem, with nothing else on that line. Sonic was never able to run fiber to our area and I refused to have AT&T fiber (didn't need the extra speed at the time and didn't want AT&T as my ISP). 

I'm a bit surprised that Sonic hasn't been able to run fiber out to Mountain View. What about Google Fiber? It was supposed to be run to that area way back when. I'm also a bit surprised that Comcast (Xfinity) doesn't offer a better cable service as well.

Yeah, embarrassing to have such poor options in the heart of Silicon Valley, but what can you do?

• Sonic fiber: this thread makes me think there's some hope. It sounds like convincing a bunch of my neighbors to sign up for availability notifications on the website might help get it prioritized. But it's not available today anyway.
• Comcast cable: they do offer higher nominal speeds on the consumer plans, and I might switch. I'd feel more optimistic if I consistently got the service I'm already signed up for! But I might try it anyway.
• Google Fiber: there was some noise back in the day, but I think their low-cost expansions didn't work out as well as they'd hoped, and they've drastically scaled back plans. I happen to be an ex-Googler and have a lot of friends who still work there; from what I hear, the company isn't real ambitious these days.
• AT&T Internet Air (an LTE hot spot, if I understand correctly): the customer service rep this morning suggested this option. I'm not sure yet what the advertised (much less actual) bandwidth or latency would be.

Anyway, thanks folks for hearing me out and answering my question as best you could.

@srlamb  AT&T's Internet Air (5G wireless broadband internet) is the newest offering upgrade from their original FWA (Fixed Wireless Air) service. They have been moving all of their FWA customers to Internet Air. It's being offered to customers where AT&T doesn't have a fiber footprint. Speeds are supposed to be up to around 200Mbps down but that will vary considerably being as it is 5G wireless.

FWIW, I have Comcast (Xfinity) cable, the 800/20 plan and consistently get around 950/25 wired and 600-700 via WiFi. Comcast is certainly not perfect but what I do like is that you can use your own modem and router, which are usually much better than the ISP-supplied equipment and our speeds are very consistent, at least where we live. And, Comcast usually pushes about 10%-20% higher speed than advertised.

I'd push Sonic if you can, at least for the fiber. They are hands down the best ISP in the Bay Area when and where you can get them.