As far as U-verse loosing subs to cable, the fact of the matter is the average customer doesn't know any better.
To most people internet is internet, and the only thing they seem to understand is data usage due to their cell phones.
I sell Comcast and every day I get a customer who asks if it's "unlimited" and I have to explain the 1024 gig data cap. Then the conversation turns to them worrying 1024 gigs is not enough, until I have to assure them that very rarely does anyone actually hit that cap.
I get a lot of people who complain about "slow" internet and believe it or not most of its attributed to a crappy router, crappy computer or some garbage cell phone they have.
Actually, most people can get by with 25 megs.
Sadly enough, customers will always go with "the cheapest one" which is really why AT&T changed their plans so it was 1 price for anything below 50 megs and the customer would get the fastest speed available.
Too many customers of AT&T would buy based solely on price, which meant most people would go with 3 megs.
The sales people where afraid to up-sell the faster packages, as I'm many cases the customer would bundle with Directv, and we needed the lower price point to sell both services.
The issue this created was customers would switch from cable, and then complain the internet was slow, where the issue was the customer not wanting to pay for the speed internet they really needed.
As far as AT&T Fiber, it really doesn't make a difference to most people, because they get the cheapest package anyways.
What the Fiber does is make every address in an area serviceable, and there is no more issues with the speeds dropping as the customer gets further and further away from the VRAD, which is the tan box where the fiber converts to copper for the last 200-4000 feet
