There is a "TL;DR" summary at the bottom of my post.
I wouldn't say AT&T is pissing away that federal grant money. I will shed a little light as to why I say this... First, I'd like to point out that I live in North Texas; the city of Allen in Collin County, to be exact. We do get competition between ISPs around here. We have Time Warner, Verizon, and AT&T.
Before the net neutrality debate entered the FCC's radar, my family had service with Time Warner. Our contract began in January 2014. We were told we would receive 100 megabits maximum download and 20 megabits maximum upload. We never had any problems with our service, except a few hiccups a month after we signed the contract. Given most providers' reputation, we had expected something to happen. The customer service was the worst part about it, as usual.
One day in September 2014, an AT&T representative was going door to door letting the neighborhood know that new, dedicated fiber lines have been successfully installed. Keep in mind the Time Warner service was through shared cable lines. The AT&T representative offered us a quarter of what we were getting from Time Warner, with only a 20% price decrease, but the would cover the fee for breaking our contact with Time Warner.
Here I am, right now, getting 25 megabits down and 5 megabits up, but on a dedicated fiber cable. We are currently paying for their best residential package. Here is the good part... They are upgrading the lines to allow more throughput. They are going to be giving us synchronous gigabit internet on the same dedicated fiber line we have now at no price increase, except for a house call to do a little more work... This is because we are already paying for the best residential package, and they are not going to create more deals for faster speeds, but they will instead be scaling up some of their current offers. I thought my leg was getting pulled, but nope... This is gonna be happening within the next year. I can't wait!!! ^{_^}
TL;DR: AT&T is upgrading and expanding their infrastructure. I have been able to experience it all first hand. What is to come shall be glorious!