AT&T chief backs off idea to sell rural phone lines

A sale of rural phone lines may be too difficult to pull off, according to AT&T Chief Executive Officer Randall Stephenson. He had said the company would look into selling its 20 million rural phone lines, but he told investors this week that the geography is too diverse and the regulatory agencies too many. Reuters reports that Stephenson told investors that the rural lines he was speaking about span 80 percent of AT&T's geographic footprint. "That's the part that would be causing you to pause in the willingness to take something like that on," he said. (Read more)