AT&T’s IP Smokescreen

For Immediate Release

November 7, 2012

Contact:
Debra DeShong Reed, Debra@Pointblankpa.com
Amy Weiss, Amy@Pointblankpa.com

AT&T’s IP Smokescreen 
(Washington, DC)—AT&T’s announcement today that it needs regulatory intervention from the FCC in order to invest in IP technology is a re-run of a tired ploy to leverage the company’s dominance. AT&T only invests in order to respond to competition, and competition is made possible by the very pro-competitive policies that AT&T seeks to eliminate.  The Broadband Coalition members have invested billions of dollars to bring the benefits of IP to American consumers from coast to coast.  But if AT&T gets its way, competition will largely disappear, investments will dry up and consumers will suffer.

Former Congressman Chip Pickering, coalition spokesman, stated,  “AT&T is simply trying to use its belated roll out of IP technology as an excuse to rewrite the telecom rules to its advantage.  We already know that AT&T’s claim that IP will somehow alter the laws of economics and lessen its dominance is patently false.  Clearly, AT&T’s proposed changes are not necessary to achieve widespread IP deployment, but the retention of competition policy is.”

For more information on the issues of importance to the coalition, go to www.thebroadbandcoalition.com.

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