‘We would see much more broadband deployment around the state.’
That’s my point. You wouldn’t.
Profitable areas are competitive. Non-profitable areas depend on an overall push by the company to see any gain. Rural Arkansas would see broadband when everyone else sees it.
I disagree. Windstream and CenteryTel are the ILECs in several areas of Arkansas. A simple comparison of those two companies against AT&T shows that they are already deploying broadband in rural areas far more aggressively than T.
SBC should have taken care of their existing wireline customers before spending billions on their acquisition spree to expand their territory. I believe that AT&T plans to let the rural copper wirelines rot - then eventually they will shut down and abandon the rural wirelines and tell everyone in rural areas to switch to cellular. (Of course, a lot of AT&T workers here will lose their jobs when that happens.)