[toast0]

> The lineman said AT&T had him installing fiber in a more-or-less haphazard manner. I guess AT&T is literally freaking out, trying to catch up and perhaps head-off Sonic as best they can.

When ATT did my street (in San Jose), they had cables labeled and made for each street with the right length drops to connect at each pole. It may seem haphazard, but there's enough planning in getting the cables made that there's probably some reason to the madness. Their FTTN was a mess of different speed tiers, many of which wouldn't be available for a given user, perhaps the precise cabling reduced costs enough for FTTH to be cost competitive enough to get installed instead.