AT&T is backing off an earlier suggestion that it would delay announced plans to roll out super-fast home Internet connections in parts of metro Atlanta and many other U.S. communities.
AT&T senior vice president Robert Quinn wrote federal regulators on Nov. 25 that the company won’t slow the deployment of speedy connections in 100 cities it has been considering (including some in metro Atlanta) or to 2 million additional customers in other areas of the nation.
Those plans had been under question since early last month, when AT&T chief executive Randall Stephenson criticized President Barack Obama’s call for regulation of how Internet providers manage online traffic.
“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 was quoted as telling investors at the time.
In October, AT&T had announced it would deploy gigabit-per-second speed to homes inside the city limits of Atlanta, Sandy Springs, Decatur and Newnan. The speed is 100 times faster than the average for American homes. But the company never said when the service would start.
AT&T also is still considering whether to provide the fast residential connections inside the city limits of Alpharetta, Duluth, Lawrenceville, Lithonia, McDonough, Marietta, Norcross, Woodstock as well as a number of other U.S. communities.
Quinn wrote to the Federal Communications Commission that while the company will stick by commitments, the president’s proposal for regulation “injects significant uncertainty into the economics underlying our investment decisions.”
That, he wrote, “makes it prudent to pause consideration of any further investments – beyond those discussed above – to bring advanced broadband networks to even more customer locations….”
Pressure has been building to provide faster speeds around the nation.
Part of the push comes from Google, which is deploying fiber in Austin, Kansas City and Provo, Utah, and is considering doing so in other areas, including the cities of Atlanta, Avondale Estates, Brookhaven, College Park, Decatur, East Point, Hapeville, Sandy Springs and Smyrna.
Atlanta-based Cox Communications, whose parent company also owns the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, launched gigabit service in Phoenix in October.
About the Author
