AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said the company's 1 Gbps fiber optic rollout would be put on pause while the FCC makes a decision on net neutrality laws, possibly affecting the future of the broadband business.

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Stephenson claimed that President Obama's suggestion - which would reclassify broadband as Title II utility - would cripple the company. This means deploying fiber optic infrastructure at this time could be a crucial financial failure.

In a business conference, Stephenson said "If you can't bring new products to service at your speed, not the government's speed, if you can't change prices at the market speed, not the government's speed, why would you ever make these investments? So we're on a pause mode right now."

However, there is one loophole AT&T did not manage to patch up, the DirecTV acquisition. AT&T, similar to Comcast, is awaiting the FCC decision on the merger, and needs to play their cards right, while still fighting for net neutrality laws to not reclassify broadband.

As part of the $49 billion deal, AT&T has proposed to wire 2 million homes with fiber optic cable. The FCC claims that if the fiber-to-home program is not going to be profitable under Obama's plan for net neutrality, what will happen to the two million DirecTV customers.

The battle for net neutrality is turning in all different types of directions, with Republican Ted Cruz getting sandbagged by his own party, after stating on Twitter that "net neutrality was the Obamacare of the Internet" and contributors for popular news organizations getting called out, after accepting funds from ISPs to write anti-net neutrality articles.

It looks like the ISPs are trying to fight back, but cannot seem to bridge the gap. , According to University of Delware Center, 81 percent of the public is against so-called Internet "fast lanes."

A report from BusinessWeek also claims that many top companies outside the tech world, like Ford, VISA and UPS, are pushing for net neutrality laws. This shows - at the very least - some corporate entities are against Internet providers having more power.

TagsAT&T, FCC, fiber optic, Net Neutrality, Randall Stephenson, President Obama