Net Neutrality Rules Workable for AT&T: CEO

Randall Stephenson, CEO of longtime net neutrality opponent AT&T, says that while no regulation would have been preferable, the agency's new rules at least provided some certainty.

Few policy debates in the technology sector stoke as much passion as network neutrality, and for several years, AT&T has been on the front lines of the opposition.

But when the Federal Communications Commission voted to approve the final order, and AT&T had a chance to review it, it might not have been so bad, CEO Randall Stephenson said today in a panel discussion at the Brookings Institution.

"We didn't get everything we'd liked to have had," Stephenson said. "I'd liked to have had no regulation to be candid, but that wasn't going to happen, obviously."

So it wasn't perfect, but he praised FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, who sat to his immediate left at today's event, for exempting wireless networks from the bulk of the regulations. It was that same exemption that enraged supporters of strict net neutrality rules.

At least this way, from AT&T's perspective, the looming uncertainty of what regulations might be in the offing has been removed. Genachowski, meantime, prefers to talk about his agency's plans for freeing up wireless spectrum and other policies to speed broadband deployment. CIO Update has the story.