As the battle heats up over the FCC’s push to partially reclassify broadband ISPs under Title II of the Communications Act, carriers (and their army of lobbying groups have been trotting out some familiar arguments. Namely, that if the FCC takes any action (no matter how wimpy), the result will be stifled investment and lost jobs. Art Brodsky at Public Knowledge takes a look at claims that Title II reclassification will result in lost jobs and stifled investment, and notes that both AT&T and Verizon are doing a good job on that front all by themselves with no real change in the regulatory environment:

Let’s talk jobs. Between March 31, 2009 and June 30 this year, Verizon cut 26,455 jobs. During the same period of time, AT&T cut 22,350 jobs. That’s 48,805 jobs cut by two companies during a period in which the regulatory regime did not change.

Let’s talk investment. In 2008, AT&T spent $19.6 billion for capital expenditures in networks and other spending (capex in the parlance). In 2009, it was $16.6 billion a 15.7% decline during a period in which the regulatory regime did not change. Verizon spent $17.2 billion for capex in 2008. In 2009, it was $17 billion an 11.6% sic, should be 1.6% decline during a period in which the regulatory regime did not change.

Of course the “stifled investment” meme is the oldest telecom lobbyist talking point in the playbook, and no matter how many times it’s debunked (even by the companies own CFOs) it never goes away. Back in reality, network investment is far-more-frequently dictated by competition, which neither Verizon or AT&T see in many of their markets. Meanwhile in Verizon’s case, their job reductions have far more to do with the death of the landline and Verizon’s conscious decision to hang up on rural Americans than anything the FCC may or may not do.

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AT&T’s second quarter earnings are out, and despite “Antennagate” and network coverage criticism, the company still managed to activate a whopping 3.2 million Apple iPhones during the quarter. Overall, the company added 1.6 million wireless subscribers (896,000 of those were not phones but embedded devices like e-Readers) for the quarter, to reach 90.1 million total wireless connections. AT&T saw a 27.2 percent growth in wireless data revenues, up $936 million from last year and their new data pricing only really just kicked in.

AT&T added a net 209,000 U-verse TV subscribers for the quarter, totaling 2.5 million. That said, AT&T overall lost about 92,000 total broadband customers, given they lost 347,000 traditional DSL customers, some to U-Verse upgrades, some to competitors. AT&T’s broadband quarter wasn’t a particularly great one, something AT&T attributes to “seasonal” slowdown, but also because competitors in non U-Verse markets are becoming “more aggressive with promotions.”

In other words, users tired of slow and expensive DSL service are upgrading to cable. AT&T hopes to counter this with bonded VDSL, which will extend U-Verse’s reach to 30 million potential users. But the fact that cable is kicking AT&T around in legacy DSL markets is kind of amusing given all the investor pressure on AT&T to skimp on network upgrades. By lamenting telco network upgrades (be they FTTH or FTTN), Wall Street stock jocks like Craig Moffett wind up helping cable companies.

On their earnings conference call, AT&T dribbled out a few interesting tidbits including the fact that their LTE trials will be starting in just a few months, with the service made available to AT&T customers sometime in 2011. The company also noted that they’ve been working hard to improve network performance in their trouble markets like New York City, where they claim dropped calls are down 23% in Manhattan while 3G speeds are up 31% the last six months. San Francisco upgrades are about 90 days behind NYC upgrades, says AT&T.

As for AT&T’s decision to impose low 200 MB and 2 GB caps on wireless smartphone users during the quarter, AT&T’s CFO Rick Lindner called the results “pretty encouraging.” Interestingly, AT&T says fewer people than they expected downgraded from unlimited to 200MB and 2GB capped plans. “To be honest we had expected virtually all of those customers to migrate down to a lower price point.” Perhaps because low caps and high overages (plus fees) isn’t really a lower price point?

Regardless, AT&T acknowledged their new tiered pricing (which Verizon is expected to mimic later this month) “may reduce the growth rate in the next year.” T-Mobile, Clearwire and Sprint certainly hope so.

Of course rumbling beneath all of this talk about wireless is AT&T’s continued loss of traditional landline voice customers and associated revenues, which AT&T happily insists saw their “smallest year-over-year decline in five quarters.” AT&T saw their wireline voice total (and they include U-Verse Voice in that total) drop to 44.3 million from 46.3 million on the quarter. Those continued losses mean continued layoffs at the company this year.

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Over the last six months, many AT&T employees have told us they expect the telco to continue laying off a considerable number of workers in 2010. The cuts are underway in California, where local news outlet KCRA notes that AT&T is planning to lay off 525 technicians statewide by the end of March. The cuts of course are tied, in part, to AT&T continues landline losses; AT&T landline revenues last quarter fell 7.1% to $16.3 billion from $17.6 billion one year ago. In Connecticut, where the telco already has a tense relationship with CT Attorney General Richard Blumenthal over previous layoffs, the company says they’re trimming an additional 160 jobs by February 19.

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AOL continues an interesting trip that took them from one of the largest and most powerful ISPs on the Internet, to a fractured and financially-troubled company with dreams of becoming an advertising giant. Of course most of their problems were caused by their inability to adapt to (or really in some cases even recognize) the broadband market – something that was at least in part caused by former executive Lisa Hook, who went on to do amazing things with VoIP carrier SunRocket as well. With its spin off from Time Warner, the company this fall has undergone its latest in an endless line of evolution efforts, but has announced those changes will come with pink slips for about one third of AOL’s employees, or about 2,300 workers.

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Eric Hetrick, business manager of IBEW Local 2322 in Middleborough, said the majority of the laid-off workers are technicians who carry out home installations of Verizon s FIOS network. Verizon is aggressively promoting FIOS, which delivers high-definition TV and high-speed Internet access as well as phone service. Hetrick said the FIOS technicians had plenty of work to do but were laid off because they had less seniority than other union members.

Verizon began this year with roughly 235,000 workers nationwide.

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