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FCC Approves AT&T Merger with MediaOne
Tei'ehm Teuw writes "From an article on CNN - The Federal Communications Commission Monday approved AT&T Corp.'s proposed
$54 billion bid to buy cable television
company MediaOne Group Inc. This will pave the road for servises like
Roadrunner to be tenatively available in 30 percent of the US market.
The FCC denied AT&T's position that the 30 percent ownership rule did
not apply to its proposed merger with MediaOne and is forcing them to reduce
the overall cable assets across the new empire. This is both good and bad, good because
broadband access is more widespread, but bat because the monopoly of old seems to be making a comeback.
" It seems that the FCC is requiring AT&T to give up MediaOne's stake in Time Warner, and/or 11.2 million other cable subscribers, so that they control under 30% of the cable market. However, I've seen a lot of these Stop AT&T billboards where I live.
As I understand it, most monopolies are bad because they keep consumers from having a choice.
But in the case of cable, there often isn't a choice.
Right now in my area, I can choose between several DSL providers, bunches of dialups, and one cable company.
So, even if this company owns only 1% of the cable in the country, it's still my 1% and I still don't have a choice.
I think the FCC regulations, rather than AT&T, are the real target here.
The FCC should force every company to show that they have real, reasonable competition in every household.
(The only way I can see that they could do this is by selling bandwidth to competitiors at a reasonable price.)
Thank you for not thinking.
Hell, even before that, New England Telephone (New England) merged with NYNEX (New York and other sundries). You can still see the places on the BA vans where NYNEX and sometimes even New England Telephone were painted on them.
The anti-cable monopoly fight has been going on for a while. I can have two cable TV providers where I live - AT&T (formerly TCI) and Ameritech. There's only one cable internet ISP, as well as Ameritech is getting out of the business.
Just think: in a little bit,
- Your TV will come from AT&T
- Your Internet will come from AT&T
- Your wireless will come from AT&T
- Your regular phone service will come from AT&T through the cable system.
Does a monopoly of cable sound like a good idea now? NO!---------------------------------
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Visit
Yet again it's time to plug Lawrence Lessig's book "Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace".
I've heard this guy speak at HP Labs. Well, he didn't really speak, just beamed Krell rays at us. Probably the smartest person in the room, and that's one very smart roomful of people - He even made me believe that there could be a purpose in having lawyers (although imagine what he might have been as a coder, if he'd not been lured by The Dark Side 8-) )
Back in the beginning, the Net was geeks piping IP traffic to each other. The technology just moved packets, it didn't care what they were, so that's how the "laws" and netiquette operated. Now we have A-T-W and AT&T trying to turn it into glorifed cable TV with programmed content -- If you liked the way it was, then better understand what's going on today.
Amazon have the book. Definitely read this one.
A recent news article describes the FOX network's efforts to overturn the 30% rule. FOX is claiming the 30% rule in a 3 network system (when the rule was adopted) no longer applies with 200 channels.
If they manage a win, the playing field will change significantly as the big players fight for the majority stake.
Unix came out of Bell Labs right?
Yeah Ken Thompson and Dennis Richie worked for Bell Labs when they created UNIX on an old unused PDP-7. But, because AT&T was involved in an anti-trust lawsuit, they were forbidden from selling UNIX for a profit. In the early 1970's Thompson and Richie put together a paper on their new UNIX operating system and presented it at an operating system conference. Because of that a lot of educational institutions became interested and AT&T agreed to "sell" UNIX (for a modest price) and the source code to academic institutions for their personal use. One of the institutions who was very interested was Berkley and most specifically the Berkley Software Development group (BSD). They added features like TCP/IP networking, a better UFS and others. Then they allowed people to download the source code and use their operating system for free. It really makes you think and raises the questions: If AT&T hadn't been in the middle of that lawsuit at the time UNIX was released, would they have kept it proprietary (in other words protected the source code and sold the operating system)? If they had, what would the open source community be like today and would even be one? Would Linux have ever been developed? And further more would IBM have gone with DOS, as the opeating system for their new PC, and decided to do business with a small unknown company, at the time, Microsoft or would they have gone with AT&T's UNIX (or System V as they called it)? Or, on the oposite side of the spectrum, would AT&T have blown off Thompson and Richie dismissing UNIX as not being worth it and squashing UNIX right away (after all, Thompson and Richie had to beg AT&T/Bell labs to buy them a PDP-11 so they could implement UNIX in C)?
We are also taking steps towards banning pesticides and making Scent-Free law. *heavy sigh*
-legolas
i've looked at love from both sides now. from win and lose, and still somehow...
I had a look at the stop AT&T website and it seems a little strange, naturally I can understand the fear of anyone gaining a monopoly over the internet, but the 30% law you guys have in the US (Which seems to be being appropriately enforced in this case) would prevent that. The webs sites also states "And we need your help to keep big cable companies like AT&T from gaining a monopoly over the Internet". This struck me as a little strange, more than one company can't have a monopoly over the same area, obviously I must then assume that the site is against companies having a monopoly over a confined geographic area. Unfortunately, because of the way cable financing works it's almost impossible for this not to happen, large numbers of companies laying different sets of cable to your street is financially prohibitive.
Instead what is needed is some kind of regulation giving access to the existing cables (at a fair prices) to other companies. One of the most interesting things set to happen here in the UK in the next couple of years is the opening of the local telephone cables, our regulatory authority (OFTEL) is giving anyone access to the actual wires that run to peoples houses. This allows for a decent level of competition without a massive investment in infrastructure.
I don't know about the US, but here in the UK it is impossible to do anything about cable monopolies. Competition is non-existant because it costs way too much to lay cable for any one area to be covered by more than one company. When cable first came here in the '80s the various companies carved up the towns into areas. Since then all the smaller companies were absorbed until there were only 3: Telewest, NTL and Cable and Wireless. A while back NTL bought C-and-W's domestic business, so now there are effectively only 2.
--
We are getting closer and closer to a world where
a very few companies ( and consequently those that
run them ) control what we see and what we hear,
what we read, and what many of the population
believes. This is what George Orwell wrote in
1984, except he thought it was the Government.
What he didn't realize is that Big Brother is
Big Business. Hell, some would argue that the
Government itself is run by the Corperations.
Too bad we're all a bunch of sheep and don't,
or won't, actually go out and do anything about it.
Just remember, when you turn on your TV, and it's
bland telling you how to be a good citizen.
Just remember, you could have done something about
it now, before they took over.
Just remember, when they tell you what god to
worship.
Just remember, you could have stopped it now,
before the national religion is AOL.
When the revolution comes, where will you be?
It's just been approved?
That's rather strange, because I had Mediaone for cable and my cable modem, but months ago they started calling it AT&T cable...
-- Dr. Eldarion --
The solution (in the US, anyway) would be Open Access, an exploding trend in our increasingly deregulated infrastructure market. I am surprised that so many people still buy the 'laying mega-miles of new cable' argument.
BellAtlantic owns the POTS line into my house, but that doesn't mean they automatically get my long distance business. They get a limited monopoly (more limited all the time) on my local phone service, in exchange for laying and maintaining all that infrastructure, but they are required to provide access to any other long distance carrier. I pay a buck or two to the local telco for 'long distance access' whether my carrier is ATT, Sprint, etc.
The same thing happens in DSL, which is even more striking. Bell Atlantic owns the wire, but it only gets $8-18 for use of its 'last mile' infrastructure. This is striking because, when you think about it, DSL only applies to the Last Mile. Once you get to any sort of trunkline or ISP, a DSL packet is no different than any other packet.
Even more striking is electrical power. The electric company owns the wires, but I can quite literally buy my power from anyone who'll sell it to me. Here, it is even more bizarre, because its all an accounting matter... the actual 'electrons' (emf) I use won't come from the guy I 'buy' them from. There are many complicated 'inputs' and interlinks pooled onto the local power grid, and a giant system exists for financially balancing the payments. Often the 'electricity vendor' is just a commodity trader, buying bulk capacity or power, with no infrastructure at all.
This is *today*. These are the bills I pay every month. There is no reason why cable is any different. they may have a 'granted monopoly' in exchange for laying and maintaining the cable for transmitting television signals, but they don't get an automatic monopoly on internet access -- that's the long distance/local issue again: cable TV and TCP are different services.
That cable companies are making an argument that has been long defeated in all other similar markets.
Unfortunately, my local cable provider doesn't provide Internet access at all. I'm not sure a new law could force them to share an 'access' that doesn't even exist. I'm actually *hoping* they get bought out by a larger company. I live in a small, fairly upscale community, full of high-tech businesses (including one of the world's leading cablemodem technology companies), surrounded by communities that all have cable modem service, but it's an island of backwardness... and the DSL sucks.
If you can go to bed, knowing you did a valuable thing today, you're very lucky. If you can't... it's not bedtime
I used AT&T for several years for long distance, Internet, and even local toll calls for part of a year. I ended up ditching them because they started sending me bills for services I never had with them like Wireless. The bill was only $50 or $100 and I spent at least 3 hours (no exagerration) trying to get it cleared up. Even after it was supposedly fixed I continued to be billed so I dumped AT&T for another LD company. I swore I'd never do business with AT&T again.
So now, two years later they are buying MediaOne, my Internet provider. So I'm left with no choice but to pay my hard-earned money to AT&T again (or give up my cablemodem.) This is a good example of how a company like AT&T can work to limit your choices and get away with it.
BTW, another company that I'm not to happy with is Verizon wireless. I had a PCS phone through PrimeCo for the last year and a half. Recently Verizon bought them--when I received my bill it was much higher than I expected but it didn't list any of the calls that were made so I called them up to ask for an itemized list of the calls. I was told that they no longer provide an itemized list of your calls unless you pay extra. This isn't directly related to the AT&T/M1 story, but I just wanted to express my opinion that Verizon SUCKS!
numb
what is the technical/financial/legal difference between different long-distance phone companies both providing service to the same area and two cable companies doing the same thing?
You can switch long distance companies because they are providing a connection to distance sites. You still have the same LEC (Local Exchange Carrier), which actually brings the wire to your house. Now, there are (in places) CLECs (Competitive LECs) available, but what they do is essentially buy local lines in bulk from the primary LEC.
The limitation is basically the fact that physical wires need to be strung on poles. You can talk of competition among the phone, power, and cable companies, but there is still only one set of power lines, one set of phone lines, and one TV cable running down your street. That is what the technical limitation is.
The problem with a company like AT&T is that they have a vertical monopoly in particular locales. They don't own more then 30% of the service nationwide, but in the areas they do service, AT&T is the:
- Phone Local Exchange Carrier (runs wires to your house, connects you to your neighbor)
- Long-distance phone carrier (connects you to Aunt Marge)
- Cable TV wire carrier (runs cable to your house)
- Television programming producer (makes TV shows ("content"))
- Internet Service Provider (connects to the 'net backbone)
- Internet Content Provider
Aunt Marge may not have AT&T's monopoly, but she may have Time-Warner's instead (or whatever).
That's the objection these people have.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
I get my Internet access through AT&T's @Home service, but in my area both AT&T and Ameritech compete for home cable access. Due to the screwy pricing structure for @Home and AT&T cable, I actually have Ameritech's cable service. Yes, it does come in on two different physical wires, but at least I get options.
Perhaps in less populated areas this isn't possible, but in cities with dense populations of cable subscribers, I think multiple providers does a great job. (Nevermind the alternative of DSS for TV and xDSL for Ineternet access).
First of all, it's "services," not "servises." And "bat" should have been "bad." Editor!
Moving to the substance of the matter, here we see big media news coverage of Yet Another Big Media Merger. Does it occur to anyone besides me that:
1) CNN's coverage of a competitor's mega-merger might be um... somewhat biased?
2) Leaving the details of this one particular mega-deal aside, it's kind of strange that such an enormous concentration of media power has been placed into the hands of so few people in an alleged Democratic Republic?
In other words, would it really make a difference if we give all the control to a single corporation over all the media (cable TV, broadcast TV, radio, broadband, dialup, newspapers) vs. splitting it up into a cartel of a dozen or so companies? If an advertiser will eagerly pay millions of dollars for a single 30-second spot during the Super Bowl(tm), it could only be for one reason -- because it works. One of the reasons I avoid watching TV is that I believe the same holds true for the other 99.9996527778% of the year. This is taking place in an era where, in theory, just about *anyone* can garner a worldwide audience for their idea, if it is good enough, using readily available, affordable equipment. Why then are so few people (RIAA, MPAA, Disney/Go/ABC, MS/NBC/GE, etc...) in control of the intellectual marketplace?
never ask a question you don't want to know the answer to