CWA: AT&T-BellSouth Deal Can Spur High-Speed Buildout

The FCC's approval of the merger of AT&T and BellSouth clears the way for increased investment and buildout of high-speed networks that are critical to the region's economic growth and the nation's position in the global economy, CWA stated. Union leaders also applauded AT&T's commitment to return jobs that have been outsourced overseas.

CWA President Larry Cohen said the merger agreement included real commitments by AT&T-BellSouth for an expanded buildout of both higher speed Internet services and DSL, an important step forward in bringing the full promise of the Internet to areas that have been passed by.

District 3 Vice President Noah Savant said: "Workers at BellSouth know that the future of communications and their own future are in the buildout of high-speed telecommunications services. This merger should help provide the resources to make this possible, and at the same time, should help create quality jobs." 

"Of course we remain concerned about the net effect on jobs within the region for frontline employees and the services we provide," Savant noted. "We are pleased to see AT&T's commitment to bringing thousands of support jobs back to the United States." Under the agreement, some 3,000 jobs are slated to return to the U.S.

Cohen stressed that CWA strongly supports an open Internet "where consumers can go where they want, when they want. Nothing should be done to degrade or block access to websites," he said. CWA also believes that reserving proprietary video bandwidth is essential in order to make such a buildout possible. The FCC recognized this in reserving the IPTV space as proprietary, much as cable controls the bandwidth on the set-top box, Cohen noted.