AT&T Mulls Upgrading Rural Lines Instead Of Selling Them

AT&T, the largest US telephone company, is considering a plan to upgrade its rural phone lines to handle higher-speed Internet service, potentially putting off an effort to sell off the underperforming assets.

AT&T would rely on new copper-line technology to offer faster broadband in areas without access to AT&T’s U-verse fiber-optic network, Chief Executive Officer Randall Stephenson told investors last week on a conference call hosted by JPMorgan Chase & Co. The idea is to provide an enhanced version of digital subscriber line, or DSL, technology on existing lines. The move would mark a shift for AT&T, which had identified its rural lines and its Yellow Pages directory service as “underperforming assets” that were dragging down the growth of the company. AT&T sold a majority stake of the Yellow Pages business to Cerberus Capital Management LP for $950 million last month. Rural lines had been next on the block.