The AT&T news for those interested:
Friday December 19, 12:39 pm Eastern Time
AT&T exec says local resale not viable option
WASHINGTON, Dec 19 (Reuters) - AT&T Corp has decided that reselling Baby Bell local phone service is not a viable option for breaking into the $100 billion local phone market, a top executive said.
''Total service resale is the only game in the market right now, and it's become all too clear that this approach won't work,'' AT&T President John Zeglis said in a speech late Thursday at the American Enterprise Institute.
''The situation got so bad that AT&T has had to actively stop marketing local service in some states.''
Zeglis said the long-distance carrier's main focus now is on offering local service by leasing pieces of the Bell's local network, known as ''unbundled network elements.''
But he added that a recent U.S. appeals court ruling on the use of unbundled network elements has complicated that strategy. The Bells are not required to rebundle the elements -- such as the local loop and operator services -- into a full-fledged network.
Because of this, the use of unbundled network elements to provide local service is ''on hold'' pending review of the appeals court decision by the U.S. Supreme court, said Zeglis.
The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that AT&T Chairman Michael Armstrong has frozen all hiring, set stringent new compensation guidelines and redirected more than $2 billion in local-phone services spending.
Armstrong, who has been on the job for barely two months, is forcing the company to make do with less and to get its stock price up quickly, the newspaper said, quoting AT&T executives.
It said that Armstrong hopes to plough much of the savings into new networks and services that should correct AT&T's paltry revenue growth. |
