AT&T pauses fiber investment on net neutrality concerns

[rdking647]

Source: cnbc

AT&T will pause investments to bring fiber connections to 100 cities until U.S. regulators iron out rules to regulate how Internet service providers manage their Web traffic, the company's chief executive told investors at a conference on Wednesday.

"We can't go out and invest that kind of money deploying fiber to 100 cities not knowing under what rules those investments will be governed," said Randall Stephenson.




Read more: http://www.cnbc.com/id/102169780?trknav=homestack:topnews:2

---

its time to fight back. order the unbundling of cable service. let me choose to reject espn if i dont want to pay for it. and all the useless channels my cable company provides. (golf channel,outdoors,etc)

also break up the cable monopoly

[NorthCarolina]

1. Then don't. Somebody else will. nt

[WhoWoodaKnew]

6. Yep. It's all smoke.

[wandy]

10. Not if ALEC has any say in this..................

North Carolina Enacts Pro-ISP, Anti-Municipal Broadband Law

North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue has announced that she won’t sign or veto the controversial bill on municipal broadband sent to her desk by the state legislature. The legislation reigns in the power of cities and towns to commission their own broadband networks. Perdue’s inaction means that House Bill 129 is a done deal.

http://www.wired.com/2011/05/nc-gov-anti-muni-broadband/

Municipal Broadband the local way to break the strangle hold.

What was that the GOP was saying about states rights?

[Helen Borg]

2. Nice blackmailing attempt!

Screw AT&T, the government should own all these projects anyway! It's essential infrastructure.

[corkhead]

13. Yeah, screw AT&T, I am going move my business to my only other choice, Comcast

Oh, wait!

[Sunlei]

3. So lets have the Gov. put in fiber optic lines in AT & Ts place. And we the public can charge AT & T

to sell their services on our public internet.

[JDPriestly]

18. Great idea. What taxes did AT&T pay last year anyway?

I mean besides the taxes that are charged on our phone bills.

[drm604]

4. Even if we get net neutrality they will eventually deploy that fiber.

This is blackmail plain and simple.

[djean111]

5. Blackmail, pure and simple.

[Snotcicles]

19. EXTORTION!

[whereisjustice]

7. Classic of example of how profit will NEVER work as incentive for good public policy...

AT&T et al want to run the internet like a cable TV service. They'll do it if we let them.

[djean111]

8. The comments at the link are interesting - can you spot the shill? :-) n/t

[rurallib]

9. seldom read comments, but that is comical

[JustAnotherGen]

15. I like this guy though

Ray Rock •31 minutes ago




The problem now is that we have local politicians that grant a monopoly to one cable company so there’s no competition in the industry.

We don’t need net neutrality regulation, we need local bureaucrats out of the way so folks have the choice of more than one cable company.

In the U.S. we have inferior internet at higher prices than many other nations and we get it with piss poor customer service from all cable
companies. Competition will fix these problems.
4 △ ▽

It's true. I can only get Comcast at my home - or satellite. But FIOS ends just down the road. Literally a mile and a half away.

So now in order to get a landline with strong international calling rates I HAVE to have Vonage because Comcast doesn't offer a flat rate (Optimum used to for us) and forget the copper company.

He's right - it's a monopoly.

[djean111]

21. Yes, he is right.

In my (below Tampa) neighborhood, though, I can switch from FIOS to Bright House at will - and have done so, over the years.
I think they now lease fiber optic off of each other. They are intertwined, and that is why the big ISPs are in lockstep on opposing net neutrality.

[JustAnotherGen]

22. Not in my community

They aren't. They can lease off each other's fiber when they have the charter - but in my community the only company that has laid fiber is comcast.

Verizon stopped laying fiber because they wanted the sales force to sell through what they had already done - prior to going to battle with other companies to tear up the sidewalks to be side by side. Makes sense - make sure people need it before you start trying to fight local municipalities.

If FIOS is an option for you - it was side by side.

It was a huge capital investment that many on their wireless side of the house absolutely resent - i.e. rewarding people for being failures.

[tridim]

11. Fine, Google and Elon Musk will do it instead.

Fuck off AT&T.

[proverbialwisdom]

23. Right? Isn't this issue telecoms vs Silicon Valley? (nt)

[Seedersandleechers]

25. Fuck At&T

I'm doing fine with google fiber in Kansas City.

[Seedersandleechers]

26. Actually with GF

I live stream everything and I don't need cable or a TV.

[deminks]

12. Translation: "We're not going to advance technology if we have to pay for it.

And we're not gonna give high speed to the masses anyway."

[JustAnotherGen]

14. Smoke screen

They are tight on money and you can't get blood from a stone -


http://www.cnet.com/news/at-t-to-buy-mexican-carrier-iusacell-for-2-5b/

The Dallas-based telecommunications provider said on Friday that it had entered into an agreement to acquire Mexican wireless provider Iusacell for $2.5 billion.

The deal is just the latest acquisition for AT&T, which has been steadily expanding both its businesses and now geographic reach, and marks the first time a US carrier will directly offer service outside of its home country. Iusacell gives AT&T 8.6 million subscribers, and covers 70 percent of Mexico's population of 120 million people. More importantly, it gives the company a new source of growth with the maturing US smartphone market. AT&T is already in the process of acquiring DirecTV for $48.5 billion in a deal that would garner it a nationwide satellite TV business.

"Iusacell gives us a unique opportunity to create the first-ever North American Mobile Service area covering over 400 million consumers and businesses in Mexico and the United States," AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said in a statement. "It won't matter which country you're in or which country you're calling -- it will all be one network, one customer experience."

AT&T shares rose 0.5 percent to $35.10 in after-hours trading. It closed up 0.6 percent to $34.91 on regular trading on Friday.

They can make more money growing the wireless smartphone base in Mexico.

And it looks like the satellite business is probably more profitable for them too.

[JDPriestly]

16. Yes to everything you said.

Or boycott cable altogether. Why should I pay to receive Fox News?

There must be some better way to deliver information and entertainment and communication than cable TV.

Oh!

Almost forgot. Internet.

Let them charge their individual subscribers more for the privilege of choosing their own content.

We do not subscribe to cable but would be willing to pay $5-10 more per month (along with millions of other subscribers) for net neutrality.

Consumers should have more choice. How much speed am I willing to pay for? What content am I willing to pay for? Etc.

It should not be big content providers that decide with their money what kind of internet service or delivery I get. I should decide that. If I prefer to pay more for internet bandwidth and do without TV, that should be my decision.

Yes to net neutrality.

Hey! And it wouldn't hurt if some of the money that goes into our military went into subsidizing broadband across the country. It is, after all, a matter of national defense or certainly could be.

Is it time for another day without the internet? Who "owns" the internet anyway? I would say it is we who use it.

[on point]

17. Time to separate the carriers from the content providers!! Then ATT will HAVE to compete on service

and that means putting in higher speed fiber, lowering prices and improving customer service.

[gvstn]

20. If they haven't laid fiber optic cable in the past 20 years.

Then they were never serious about doing it.

[rdking647]

24. in my area there is cable competition

i can have time warnet or att uverse. google announced that they are bringing google fiber to austin. lo and behold i got an email from time warner saying they are increasing my internet speed from 20mb/s to 100 mb/s at no additional cost.

time to end heh cable monopolies

[unblock]

27. we just made an embarassing business decision. who can we blame? ah, yes! washington!

the usual big company innovation strategy is to get your preferred reality entrenched big time ahead of regulation, so that government can't do what you don't want them to do without causing so much pain it becomes politically impossible.

companies like at&t have been doing this for years. are we really to believe they've grown timid all of a sudden and will wait patiently with idle money and resources biding their time until washington clarifies its regulatory views?

hardly. they made the decision first, for some unrelated business reasons, and then found something convenient to blame.

[JEFF9K]

28. AT&T should take a pause in sending out erroneous, exhorbitant phone bills.

I've had to call their "retention" department 3 times in the last 6 months!