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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.
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)?
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.
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?
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.
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