The CEO of AT&T said during a Monday television appearance that he doesn’t expect the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to announce a decision on the company’s merger with DirecTV this week.
{mosads}”What’s happened right now as you know is there was a stay request for the Title II rules that was filed last week by the industry and the judge put a pretty tight time horizon on the FCC to respond to that so that’s probably going to take a lot of their attention over the next week or two,” said Randall Stephenson on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” noting that the deadline for the FCC to respond to the stay request for the net neutrality rules was on Friday.
“So there’s not going to be a lot done over the next week on anything other than Title II,” he said.
A recent Wall Street Journal report indicated that regulators are unlikely to block the deal — though the FCC may place conditions on the merger as part of their approval.
A coalition of groups and companies opposed to the deal asked the FCC last week to tell AT&T that they must comply with the agency’s net neutrality rules for seven years even if the controversial order is not upheld by the courts. They are also asking for a variety of other conditions.
AT&T is opposed to the net neutrality rules and is backing lawsuits against the FCC over the order.