AT&T parses meaning of ?pause? in its commitments to fiber

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson appears to be backtracking somewhat from his November 12 declaration to halt its build-out of fiber-based U-verse. Stephenson had made the statement in the wake of President Obama’s proposal to place broadband under Title II of the Communications Act, effectively regulating it as a public utility.

After an exchange of letters with the FCC, AT&T wrote that the company wasn’t actually reneging on its existing commitments. FCC lobbyist Robert Quinn wrote the commission explaining, “AT&T is not limiting our FTTP deployment to 2 million homes. To the contrary, AT&T still plans to complete the major initiative we announced in April to expand our ultra-fast GigaPower fiber network in 25 major metropolitan areas nationwide, including 21 new major metropolitan areas.”

However, the company repeated that Obama’s apparent desire to further regulate the Internet “makes it prudent to pause consideration of any further investments – beyond those discussed above.”

AT&T tells FCC its threat to halt fiber rollout is only for new projects (Engadget, Nov. 26, 2014)

Quinn letter to FCC (AT&T release, Nov. 25, 2014)