AT&T's Stephens: Hope to have decision on rural wireline assets by end of the year

AT&T senior executive VP and CFO John Stephens said the company could have a solution for what to do with its rural wireline assets by the end of the year.

"With regard to our wireline business, particularly some of the non-urban wireline access lines, the process is ongoing," Stephens said. "There's been a lot written about what to expect or whether things have changed, but I pull us back to the beginning of year (when) we thought it would take 18-24 months to do a full evaluation and we shortened that time frame to 12-18 months and we're hopeful to have something done by the end of the year." "The challenge is broadband resolution for those non-urban areas," Stephens said. "We had a proposed transaction last year that was not approved that would have provided us that, and we have to go back to evaluating that capability."