AT&T: FCC's 'Third Way' Would Be Road To Ruin

AT&T told the Federal Communications Commission that its proposal to reclassify broadband transmissions as a telecommunications service subject to some Title II common carrier regulations -- FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski's so-called "third way" proposal" -- would be a "road to ruin" based on "incontrovertible" evidence in the public record.

Not mincing any words, the phone company told the FCC that its plan would deliver none of the benefits touted by the chairman, would not stand up in court, would thwart the Obama Administration's broadband agenda, would "abandon" light-touch regulation, widen the digital divide, and would hurt job growth, investment, and the chairman's much-vaunted "innovation." "Whether or not accompanied by partial regulatory forbearance, reclassification would, for the first time ever, saddle the broadband industry with regulation originally developed for telephone monopolists seventy-five years ago."