Title II Reclassification May Have Meant Lowered AT&T Capex, Singer Says

fellow, in a Wednesday blog post. On the surface, AT&T capital expenditures went up from 2014 to 2016, from $21.2 billion to $21.5 billion, but that tells only part of the story, he said. It doesn’t take into account AT&T’s increased spending on DirecTV or in Mexico, Singer noted. With investments in DirecTV and Mexico taken out of the numbers, capex in 2016 declined by 16.2 percent from 2014, which was before reclassification -- $17.8 billion versus $21.2 billion, Singer said. “Put differently, the imposition of Title II is associated with (but did not necessarily cause) an annual reduction of over $3 billion in capital in the broadband sector in each of the last two years,” he said. “That’s a lot of capital to go missing.” FCC Chairman Ajit Pai repeatedly argued that reclassification has meant less spending (see 1602260053). Matt Wood, Free Press policy director, challenged Singer’s arguments. “Even Hal cannot bring himself to claim that Title II ‘caused’ the reduction in AT&T's spending,” Wood emailed. “It's ‘associated’ with Title II? What on earth does that mean? There is no logic to the incredible leap he makes here by pretending that his is a straightforward argument. At best, he's trading in baseless innuendo and insinuations.” Singer said based on his calculations, capex spending by 12 top ISPs was down $3.6 billion in 2016, a 5.6 percent decline from 2014 levels. AT&T saw the biggest decline.