Verizon president Ivan Seidenberg said Monday that he does not expect AOL to back out of a DSL deal with Verizon after AOL's merger with Time Warner is complete. Seidenberg said he doesn't believe that cable modems alone can handle the subscriber base the combined companies will have.

The FTC, which is reviewing the AOL-Time Warner deal, is reportedly concerned that AOL will abandon DSL deals in markets where Time Warner offers high-speed cable-modem service.

Seidenberg said AOL has an incentive to serve high-speed platforms besides cable. AOL and Time Warner officials said limiting high-speed AOL services to Time Warner Cable systems would shut them out of 80 percent of U.S. homes.