A Telco Survival Guide (A Slow Economy & Soaring Gas Prices‪)‬

This January at Citigroup's annual media and telecommunications conference, AT&T Chief Executive Officer Randall Stephenson told the bank that the phone company was disconnecting large numbers of customers for failure to pay their broadband and landline bills. The news sent AT&T's stock spiraling downward and fueled speculation that the country was indeed in a recession--a term many were reluctant to utter before the AT&T revelation. Months later, most economists agree that the economy has slowed, but what does this mean for small telephone companies? Most financial analysts point out that rural America is insulated in some ways from the economic swings of the nation as a whole, but these analysts note that higher gas prices are having an impact.