For decades now, AT&T has promised that an incredible boon in broadband investment is waiting just around the corner — but only if AT&T gets what it wants from the government. Whether it‘s gunning for tax cuts and subsidies, or looking for approval of its latest megamerger, AT&T‘s an absolute master of the regulatory carrot and a stick game. Even if the carrot is entirely hallucinated, as we saw when AT&T threatened to curtail already minimal fiber optic deployment unless net neutrality was killed.