AT&T Inc. will delay installing high-speed Internet infrastructure in 100 U.S. cities until rules to keep the Internet open are clarified, Chief Executive Officer Randall Stephenson said.
“We are now starting infrastructure projects that we don’t have any clarity or line of sight, in terms of what rules those will be governed under,” Stephenson said at a Wells Fargo & Co. investor conference in New York today. “We have to pause, we have to just put a stop on those kind of investments we are doing today.”
Stephenson’s remarks come two days after President Barack Obama called for strict regulations on high-speed Internet providers to require them to treat all content equally. Obama asked the Federal Communications Commission to consider such rules even though FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has proposed a lighter approach.
AT&T on Nov. 10 called Obama’s proposal “a mistake” and went so far as to say that if the government chooses to regulate the Internet like a public utility, the company may challenge it legally.
AT&T is building 100 percent fiber-optic network connections with Internet speeds up to 1 gigabit per second to cities around the U.S., according to the company’s website. Among the cities being considered for fiber deployment are San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Cleveland.
The service is now available in three Texas cities: Dallas, where AT&T is based, as well as Fort Worth and San Antonio.
“We are now starting infrastructure projects that we don’t have any clarity or line of sight, in terms of what rules those will be governed under,” Stephenson said.
“That can have no effect other than to cause one to pause,” he said
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