Re: They sure as hell aren't laying fibre.
The article is commenting on how SDN/NFV is giving an opportunity to not spend quite so much money on their mobile network as the expensive ATCA chassis/boards typically used to house the core functions like MSC, GSN, MME, SGW, etc... can be replaced by cheap "clouds" where each function is a program running on an Intel board, scaling up as demand ramps by dint of just adding another VM into the mix.
It's not a comment on their domestic broadband market, which doesn't have this opportunity.
Not that AT&T won't want to spend the least amount of money (and perhaps even a bit less) to meet (or narrowly miss in a manner that's able to be spun appropriately to make it seem like it's been met) their obligations.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
