FCC questions AT&T’s decision to “pause” its fiber optic rollout

By Tech

The Federal Communications Commission has sought clarification from AT&T regarding its decision to “pause” the company’s roll out of high-speed fiber optic lines across the US.

Randall Stephenson, AT&T’s chief executive, ended up landing squarely on the FCC’s radar for comments he made about the temporary shutdown of the company’s fiber optic plans. The CEO said that in the face of uncertainty about the future of net neutrality AT&T can’t afford to invest in the project “without knowing the rules” that will govern that network. Meanwhile, the FCC has sent a letter to AT&T on Friday asking for clarification about the company’s plans regarding the technology to be used in the roll out and how many households it plans to connect.

The FCC has AT&T in a bit of a bind; while the telecoms provider has a vested interest in the net neutrality decision the Commission is currently mulling over, it also needs approval from the FCC for the nascent plan to acquire satellite television provider DirecTV for $48.5 billion. The approval for that business move is already on the back burner until consumer protection provisions are ironed out, and AT&T has said that it’s dedicated to working with the FCC in any way it can.

AT&T’s original plans for the fiber optic roll out, which would bring data transfer speeds as high as 1 gigabit per second to consumers, were to reach 100 cities across the US by the end of 2015. However, Stephenson intimated that the deployment could be limited to just the 2 million homes that were part and parcel to the DirecTV deal instead.

The FCC wants more than just information about the roll out plans when it comes to the fiber optic technology. The Commission says that it needs to determine if the investment plan AT&T is relying on would be profitable or not, and also wants to see if it would be a profitable venture to roll that fiber service out to those 2 million homes. The FCC also requested any and all documents related to those plans in the wake of the DirecTV acquisition.