AT&T CEO Confident Title II Will Be Overturned by Courts or Congress
AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson last November claimed he would pause the company’s fiber investments because of the impending broadband reclassification and imposition of net neutrality rules.
“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,” Stephenson said at the time.
But now that the Federal Communications Commission has reclassified broadband providers as common carriers and used its Title II authority to impose net neutrality rules, Stephenson says AT&T is confident that it can keep investing. It’s not because AT&T agrees with the rules, as the company has sued to overturn them. Instead, Stephenson said he is confident that either the courts or Congress will overturn or heavily alter the FCC’s decision.
“The exact comment I made was we’re going to put a pause on our new broadband deployment plans until we see how these rules came out,” Stephenson said today in an interview with CNBC. “We have seen how the rules came out. As we read those rules, we do believe they’re subject to modification by the courts and remand by the courts to the FCC.”
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Keep in mind, Title II was put in place with a 3-2 vote of this commission. Title II could be changed by a 3-2 vote from another commission,” Stephenson said. “There’s just a lot of moving parts here. We think it’s unlikely the rules will stay in place like they are in the long term.”
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