The Alabama legislosers (no liberal bunch by any stretch of the imagination) deregulated AT&T in their last session (first part of the year) taking away any oversight by the Public Service Commission.
Same old promises about it would be good for competition, etc. About 2 months after the deregulation, AT&T raised the rates for landlines. What a surprise!

Don't think there has been any deployment of UVerse and I don't think Verizon has anything in AL but cell service.