AT&T Threatens to Stop Deploying U-Verse
WASHINGTON, June 16, 2010 – In response to FCC Chairmen Julius Genachowski’s Third Way proposal to institute a level of regulation on broadband AT&T has decided to “rethink” it’s spending on its high speed DSL service. AT&T’s U-Verse offers users television and internet to 24 million homes; with pla
WASHINGTON, June 16, 2010 – In response to FCC Chairmen Julius Genachowski’s Third Way proposal to institute a level of regulation on broadband AT&T has decided to “rethink” it’s spending on its high speed DSL service. AT&T’s U-Verse offers users television and internet to 24 million homes; with plans to add another 6million by the end of next year.
AT&T’s CEO Randall Stephenson said “If this Title 2 regulation looks imminent, we have to re-evaluate whether we put shovels in the ground,”
In response to this threat made by AT&T; Free Press, a media advocacy think tank, has claimed that this threat is meaningless. S. Derek Turner, Free Press research director, said “AT&T has no credibility on investment, and this latest threat is further evidence of that. The company continues to cry wolf about investment to pressure the FCC into doing its bidding, while it fails to deliver on key promises. In 2002, the company (operating as SBC) promised the Commission that it would invest billions to deploy fiber-to-the-home technology if the FCC gave it specific deregulatory favors. AT&T got exactly what it wanted, but the company has yet to deliver on its investment promise. This latest threat is just more of the same.”
