What pisses me most about AT&T U-verse is that they do have FTTU (fibre-to-the-user) / FTTP, but they limit FTTP users to speeds that are lower than what they offer through VDSL through FTTN.
I used to live in San Jose, CA in 2010/2012, in a brand new apartment complex, had AT&T U-verse fibre strand terminated in my bedroom closet with an ONT. The line was FTTP-BPON (622/155 1:32), e.g. 622Mbps down / 155Mbps up, shared with at most 32 users, I checked with the manufacturer of my particular ONT.
But AT&T would only provision me with 18/1.5. They'd offer 24/3 to VDSL users only, supposedly too lazy to update the fibre profiles to offer it to the fibre customers. I researched it, and it was not unique to my building or to California, they were doing it all across the country with every single BPON build. My T-Mobile HSPA+ had higher upload speeds than 1.5Mbps on my top-of-the-line AT&T FTTU through BPON.
Keep in mind that the 622/155 line can only be shared with at most 32 users, and some wouldn't even want the top-of-the-line plans, either, or would not have active service in the first place, so, they're basically wasting their own capacity, and refusing an extra 10$/mo from me. Ping time was sometimes about 3ms to some locations within the Bay Area, but the 1.5Mbps bandwidth was pretty pathetic for a BPON fibre line.
I was so pissed I started a whole web-site dedicated to showing how uncompetitive AT&T internet offerings are compared to the options elsewhere in the country -- http://bmap.su/. So happy Google Fiber has finally been announced for San Jose, CA and lots of other markets now! I'm willing to be it'll be some other provider that'll offer broadband to my past place before AT&T will get to their senses and starts using at least the BPON infrastructure that they already have in place.