Any suggestions on how to formulate a plan to submit the code, collected data analysis, marketing to this american isp? I think they would be more receptive considering their modem/router combos already utilize linux.
Why it would be profitable for them, including development, production, distribution, and support costs would be essential for it to get any attention at all. No compelling business plan, no business.
Online Gaming and VOIP comes to mind first. Two huge markets that justify aqm management with proven results. Demand drives innovation which then drives profits.
OK, now you need to turn that into a business plan.
How will specifying that their ODM use OpenWRT increase AT&T's profits?
- What is the size of the potential market?
- How much more is what fraction of that market willing to pay per month?
- What, if anything, will it do to improve customer acquisition and retention?
- What is the increased per-unit costs over their current ODM's costs?
- What are the increased support costs?
It's been 30 years since AT&T spun off Bell Labs. They are a commodity-service provider, not an innovator. They use Linux not because they like it, but because their ODMs find it the cheapest way to get a router running, at least for a few more years.
Think about that DOCSIS 3.1 already supplies AQM and that AT&T already sells voice services as you work through the pitch and the business plan.
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Isnt At&t just a different machine language compared to intel?, not that it matters. I'm sure they have taken all into consideration, considering they probably have the money and resources to do so, along with many other people with longevity in the field that have strategies already implemented for different vendors.
Regrettably, I agree with @jeff for all the reasons he cites.
We OpenWrt nerds can afford to "take a chance" and install new firmware on our routers. If it works, we're heroes. And if it doesn't, our spouse and kids will be mad at us until we get it working again. And then life goes on.
But... AT&T (and any other other big company) has to ask the question: How much more money will we make by making this big switch to our product?
And the real answer is not a penny more.
It would be really hard for the company to attract the attention of any (non-techie) home router owner to say: Hey, pay us $X for a new router (or even new router firmware) and we'll "make your latency lower". Huh? What the heck does that mean? Or tell them that "the network will be faster": Actually, SQM probably won't make it any faster, and might be a couple percent slower. It'll feel better, but the speedtest will be lower. Neither is an attractive proposition to the customer.
And... No on would believe them. I don't know if you've gone onto any gaming sites. People grumble about latency killing them in games. If you say, "just install a router that does SQM", a dozen people respond with their set of special QoS settings for the particular game (that work fine for them). (And note that each person's responses are different...) Gamers, who've worked so hard to set up their own QoS rules, seem unable to believe that a new technology (Cake/SQM) could solve the problem with no particular configuration.
So it's kind of depressing, in the global scheme of things. But it's kind of cool to know that you've got the best networking around 
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