Once it became clear that FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell would not vote on the AT&T/BellSouth merger currently pending before the Commission, AT&T got serious about bringing the two Democratic commissioners on board. Yesterday the company filed a second set of merger conditions that offered new concessions on network neutrality and other matters in the hopes of breaking the current impasse.
AT&T had initially proposed a set of conditions back in October, but it soon became clear that these were not going to satisfy Commissioners Copps and Adelstein. The new deal was made grudgingly, with AT&T Senior Vice President Robert Quinn telling the Commission that even the first set of commitments was “wholly unnecessary” and that opponents were seeking to gain concessions “they were unable to obtain from Congress.” Nevertheless, in a spirit of pragmatism, AT&T has agreed to… maintain “a neutral network and neutral routing in its wireline broadband Internet access service”
Congressmen paid by the RIAA with blood money will overrule the FCC in 3…2…1….
ION, AllOfMP3.com is having a +20% until Jan 14th. The Beatles Love album is nice, the songs seem longer.
No, I won’t share them, go buy your own album for 3$.
Their blog is a fun read too.
So you’re OK with government use of power in dictatorial fashion in some circumstances at least. Why should a merger have to be approved at all? It should be the other way around, and the government has to show cause as to why not. How about we just force everyone to make concessions to bureaucrats when they go to get a new driver’s license, or register to vote? Or how about when getting a marriage license?
#2: Do you really want to go back to the days of “We are the phone company–we are omnipotent,” again? That’s why AT&T was broken up in the first place, and that’s why everyone is so leery of them buying their biggest competitors.
I’m a bit uncertain… Techdirt analyzed concessions AT&T made late Thursday night and decided the net neutrality concessions applied only to part of the network (not the high speed ‘IPTV’ portion.) Is this an even newer set of concessions, or is it the usual legalese that 25 lawyers will be able to interpret 50 ways?
#2. Back in AT&Ts “omnipotent” days, who gave it a monopoly in the first place? Oh yeah, the government did.
#4: AT&T promised to keep their existing network open. That’s the current network they’re getting rid of for fiber to the home. You might remember that – we gave them billions in tax breaks for something they didn’t deliver in the Telecom Act of 1996.
I’m OK with letting a private business do as they wish… but AT&T’s network is built off public right-of-ways, and the fact of the matter is, they’re a regulated business, so if they don’t like being regulated, they should get out of the business. As we let the big companies take over the Internet and turn it into another closed network, America will fall farther & farther behind other countries. This whole business will be viewed as a big mistake 30 years from now… at which point we’ll probably break up AT&T again.
#6: that’s the way I read it too. Unless there were changes after the Techdirt post, I am disappointed in the FCC (but not surprised.)
#2. the right-of-ways issue has already been mentioned, but I will sweeten the pot – if AT&T reimburses the American public for 100+ years’ use of those easements, they can go totally unregulated. oh, and they have to refund the tax breaks they got for the undone fiber to the home. the advocates of universal deregulation never mention that regulation generally came with subsidies.
and guess what – we do have to make concessions to bureaucrats to get a driver’s licenses. we have to pay fees, take tests, get our eyes checked, etc.
what an Orwellian setup!
This is interesting. Does this imply the FCC also supports net neutrality?
BTW keep in mind. SBC (PacBell) bought AT&T and kept AT&T’s name.. so technically it’s not the old AT&T we used to know… but it still is. LOL
#9 – No, it just implies the current FCC did not want to give approval without a pretense of serving the publicinterest. That AT&T only pledged to maintain the status quo of the soon-to-be-obsolete existing network, but not on the newer IPTV portion, says it all. Well – almost all. #4’s remark about 25 lawyers reading it 50 different ways probably says the rest.
It’s all just window dressing. The big corporations are going to do whatever they want anyway, accompanied by a “wink, wink” from the Bush regime. The Dems won’t try to stop it any more than they have ever voted against Disney or the RIAA.