AT&T Inc. on Wednesday backpedaled from a threat to freeze the rollout of its ultrafast Internet service because of uncertainty around the government’s Net-neutrality rules.
In a letter to the Federal Communications Commission, AT&T said it isn’t limiting its fiber expansion to the 2 million homes it committed to as part of its $49 billion acquisition of DirecTV, in contrast to recent comments from its chief executive.
“To the contrary, AT&T still plans to complete the major initiative we announced in April to expand our ultrafast GigaPower fiber network in 25 major metropolitan areas nationwide,” Robert Quinn, AT&T’s senior vice president for federal regulatory matters, said in the letter to the FCC.
Two weeks ago, chief executive Randall Stephenson said AT&T would put a stop to the additional fiber-rollout investment.
“We can’t go out and just invest that kind of money deploying fiber to 100 cities other than these 2 million not knowing under what rules that investment will be governed,” he said on Nov. 12 at a Wells Fargo conference. The 100 cities are included in the 25 metro areas AT&T cited in its letter to the FCC.
His remarks were in response to President Barack Obama’s support for regulating Internet lines as a utility, and the comments prompted the FCC to ask for an explanation
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