After the recent statements made
by President Obama and FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler regarding the possibility of
reclassifying broadband providers under the Title II regulations of the
Communications Act for utilities, AT&T has moved to pause its planned rollout
of its new U-Verse GigaPower fiber service until the expected argument
regarding the issue is settled once and for all. The CEO Randall Stephenson
said that it is not feasible to make a move investing the amount of money
deploying fiber to 100 cities while being still unaware of the rules under
which those investments will be governed. Therefore, it is wiser to simply
pause and take time to develop the insights and understanding about how those
rules will be implemented and what their impact would be.
Reacting to the statements made
by Obama and Wheeler on the Net neutrality push, AT&T threatened legal
action if any attempt was made at Title II classification for broadband
providers along with other carriers. Although, this latest move by AT&T seems
logical in the turn of events, it also throws some light on the psychology of
the major carrier. AT&T is indeed feeling threatened by the statements made
by Obama and Wheeler regarding the new push because being reclassified as a
utility would mean that the company would no longer enjoy the advantages it
currently does as a broadband provider.
Without the advantages in
infrastructure control and the local monopoly power that AT&T has been benefiting from all these years, it would be forced to compete against local
competitors and resellers, much like its namesake predecessor did when the Bell
System was broken up during the 1980’s, which led to competition and growth in
the telephone sector that drove down prices for local and long-distance
calling.
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