Why AT&T's U-Verse Expansion Will Be Much Smaller Than You Think → wireline future...

here's one possible future.. AT&T will spin off the wireline residential & business markets and they will file for bankruptcy-- just thousands of times worse than the micro sliver baby bells spawned form Verizon: Frontier & Fairpoint.

this is if the federal government doesn't start reading these telcos the riot act about getting all that free cable-tv video franchises granted access to in the 1996 telecom reform act.

That'll never happen. They've already separated the wireless business unit from the wireline unit. At some point they just turn off the lights and walk away whilst sucking madly at the plump, tasty wireless tit.

I certainly hope not but I fear you are correct.

I just signed up with a CLEC and am getting much better ADSL speed at a lower price. However they are dependant on UNE since they have to rent copper pair from the incumbent and collocate DSLAMs at each Central Office. If copper goes away I'm dead in the water.

/tom