As we noted earlier this month, the FCC recently set the ball rolling for the long and arduous task of migrating the country away from our legacy circuit-switched phone systems to an all-IP voice network. AT&T has since filed their response (pdf) with the FCC, arguing that they should no longer have to support traditional phone services. AT&T of course isn't as interested in the migration to all IP as they are the elimination of regulations that govern their businesses from state to state. It is, however, refreshing to hear a baby bell clearly admit the landline, as we know it, is dead:AT&T goes on to insist that 90% of the country already has access to broadband (a debatable metric, especially in more rural AT&T states), and that maintaining landline service will become an increasing drain on their coffers. AT&T of course sees the FCC rulemaking process not as an opportunity to ramp up broadband deployment -- but instead to reshape the regulatory process to improve revenues. This is, after all, the company that chose to milk copper instead of migrate to fiber to the home, and like Verizon, really has little to no interest in providing rural Americans with connectivity -- of any kind.

While AT&T's response to the FCC is chock full of bubbly jargon about the exciting broadband road ahead, most of AT&T's excitement is actually focused on moving all broadband regulation to the more-easily lobbied federal level, revamping the Universal Service Fund so it works more in AT&T's favor, and whatever other regulatory perks they can squeeze out of the FCC as this conversation gets underway. The number of inconsistencies you'll find in AT&T's statement will be directly proportional to how closely you've tracked the history of Ma Bell over the last 100 years.