AT&T will stop investing in high-speed fiber internet until net neutrality rules decided

[Dietrichw]

Source

 

 

AT&T has responded to the President's support of Net Neutrality. The CEO Randall Stephenson said that AT&T would stop investing in high-speed fiber connections for 100 cities until the FCC makes a decision on internet service provider regulation. Stephenson also said that if the FCC sides with the President and pass "tough" rules like Title II, the FCC would face years of litigation. AT&T is complaining that Title II would hurt competition (it doesn't) and along with other ISP plan potential lawsuits if such laws are passed. 

[Captain_Slow]

wait was there a merger between AT&T and Ubisoft I didn't know about?

[CtW]

AT&T can go fuck themselves.

[SirRoderick]

Ah, so now they're flat out threatening the FCC in public.

 

Because that makes sense.

[Darkman]

Why do we have Net Neutrality? Even Obama is for it. All they want is more money and more control over us..

[A.D.A.M]

the FCC would face years of litigation

so now they are threatening the fcc. good guy at&t /s

[pixeldensity]

Net neutrality cant hurt competition if there isn't any in the first place. And what good is fiber if at&t is throttling every thing

[Techhog]

Unfortunately, there's no hope. Literally every major ISP smartphone carrier in the country is against net neutrality. The government will give in because of the expense of lawsuits from AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner, T-Mobile, and who knows who else?

[Orblivion]

Bring on Google Fiber please.

[RevoltTrain]

Still waiting on Google Fiber to save me from my Comcast Internet. It's fairly fast (100 down, 25 up) but fairly unreliable.

[Stuff_]

Google fiber needs to hook up in San Antonio already

[Orblivion]

Google fiber needs to hook up in San Antonio already

 

They need to hook up everywhere, but they just don't have the infrastructure to do it.  I'm just hoping that the more the net neutrality issue drags on, the more Google will ramp up their Fiber initiative.  Push the other ISPs out of business while they're too busy throwing temper tantrums.

[Gnator]

Big companies are taking the advancement of the world hostage because they didn't like what we are doing... This is why we need net neutrality. We can't have those with power stifle our innovations..

[Misanthrope]

Well at least this will show tech savvy people how much Democracy they have: 0

[TetraSky]

Wait, AT&T was working on a fiber network?
From all I've heard of ISPs in the US, I would've thought that was impossible. (Or are they just lying?)

In any case, this is clearly a threat. Though it's not like the FCC would've done it in the first place, not even with the president's support.

[Orblivion]

Wait, AT&T was working on a fiber network?

From all I've heard of ISPs in the US, I would've thought that was impossible. (Or are they just lying?)

In any case, this is clearly a threat. Though it's not like the FCC would've done it in the first place, not even with the president's support.

 

Verizon already has the fiber network, the other ones have just been too cheap.  To be honest I'm not actually displeased with my current connection from Verizon but I am displeased with their pricing, their business practices, and their stance on net neutrality.

[zanduh]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought AT&T made a deal with the government to not violate net neutrality for 5 years anyways?

[SpaceCore]

It's times like these I wish I was pro at fund raising.

There is zero education requirement to join office in the states. As a result, uneducated people are theatened by an empty threat.

 

anyone remember when AT&T swallowed Cingular? during that time they also wanted T-Mobile. I thank the gods T-Mobile never sold to AT&T.

 

I wonder how far AT&T would of made it without eating Cingular and parts of T-Mobile's market.

 

I dispise AT&T.

[LlamaDom]

Good. Let their network crumble and die. Then maybe competing companies will get an advantage.

[zanduh]

It's times like these I wish I was pro at fund raising.

There is zero education requirement to join office in the states. As a result, uneducated people are theatened by an empty threat.

 

anyone remember when AT&T swallowed Cingular? during that time they also wanted T-Mobile. I thank the gods T-Mobile never sold to AT&T.

 

I wonder how far AT&T would of made it without eating Cingular and parts of T-Mobile's market.

 

I dispise AT&T.

 

Well TECHNICALLY AT&T doesn't exist anymore so you hate a ghost

(When they were forced to disband the company AT&T ceased to exist and the new company at&t was created with the same staff and same assets and soon the same acquisitions but shhh totally different)

[Kherm]

It's times like these I wish I was pro at fund raising.

There is zero education requirement to join office in the states. As a result, uneducated people are theatened by an empty threat.

 

anyone remember when AT&T swallowed Cingular? during that time they also wanted T-Mobile. I thank the gods T-Mobile never sold to AT&T.

 

I wonder how far AT&T would of made it without eating Cingular and parts of T-Mobile's market.

 

I dispise AT&T.

Cingular, oh the memories

[EChondo]

As a AT&T customer that hasn't had any problems with their service(probably because of my business package), I would at least like to do a bit of devil's advocate on this.

 

I can see on one hand that holding off fiber in "100 cities"(has been planned since April 2014) before the rules are decided can benefit them more because if the rules are changed then they could expand into more prominent cities that they didn't have access too before in.

 

If the rules aren't changed then they go back doing whatever they were doing before, hopefully.

 

My city already has a fiber backbone to their DSLAM's and then the last mile(mine is 750ft) is copper to the house, however we are not up for their "Giga-Fiber". Also I can't comment on their spiel about FCC facing litigation, if I was the FCC I'd put the ban hammer on them and make everything TitleII just to make them shut up.

[mr moose]

Unfortunately, there's no hope. Literally every major ISP smartphone carrier in the country is against net neutrality. The government will give in because of the expense of lawsuits from AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner, T-Mobile, and who knows who else?

 

Technically the president can over rule court decisions so they shouldn't be scared of that, he did it when the court found apple guilty of IP theft ( I think his excuse was it would hurt the economy too much).

 

So in reality there is no reason for the government to side with ISPs.  If they do it is pure corruption or pure stupidity, they can decide what they are.

[bcredeur97]

oh gosh AT&T I hate u more and more everytime i see u in the news...

[Techhog]

Technically the president can over rule court decisions so they shouldn't be scared of that, he did it when the court found apple guilty of IP theft ( I think his excuse was it would hurt the economy too much).

 

So in reality there is no reason for the government to side with ISPs.  If they do it is pure corruption or pure stupidity, they can decide what they are.

Apple paid him off. The people who want net neutrality are good guys, so they won't bribe him. The ISPs however? They're already trying to find what his price is.