AT&T Offering Merger Concessions

TheFarmerInTheDell writes that AT&T is offering concessions to make their merger with SBC happen as fast as possible. From the article: "AT&T filed a letter of commitment with the [Federal Communications Commission] Thursday night that adds a number of new conditions to the deal, including a promise to observe 'network neutrality' principles, an offer of affordable stand-alone digital subscriber line service and divestment of some wireless spectrum."

Comments

Don't forget the fine print.

[DraconPern]

affordable stand-alone digital subscriber line service * pricing only valid for the first three month of contract.

But

[JustOK]

TechDirt is pointing out that

The wording is a little tricky, but while they agree not to remove network neutrality from their standard network, hidden in the middle of a later paragraph is this sentence: "This commitment also does not apply to AT&T/BellSouth's Internet Protocol television (IPTV) service."

and

AT&T promises not to violate network neutrality on a network they never intended to use that way, and carves out permission to use it on their new network, where they had planned all along to set up additional tollbooths.

Yay, AT&T!

SBC != BellSouth

[plaiddragon]

SBC already merged with AT&T. It is this AT&T that is now offering concessions to get the merger with BellSouth to go through.

Re:SBC != BellSouth

[Umbral Blot]

One network to rule them all, One network to find them,
One network to bring them all and in the darkness bind them

Welcome Back Ma Bell

[allscan]

Wow, and to think the Antitrust suit from the 70's against AT&T was supposed to break up the monopoly. Now they are coming back strong http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_break_up_of_AT%26 T.

Re:Welcome Back Ma Bell

[silentounce]

Maybe that industry "wants" to be a monopoly. You can't turn a pig into a chicken by gluing feathers on him, eventually they'll fall off. By the way, antitrust laws are not intended to break up monopolies. They are there to deter and punish only certain anti-competitive actions. The laws were put into place for mostly political reasons. Many economists are against them.
 
Monopolies or oligopolies aren't all bad in some industries, sometimes they are the most efficient market structure. I'm not saying that the telecom industry is one of these, but there is a reason that after several breakups that they just coming back together. The same thing has happened in the airline industry. Any industry that demands a very large infrastructure will always lean toward a non-competetive market structure because the "cost to play" is so high.

Re:Welcome Back Ma Bell

[arclyte]

I call bullshit on this one.

It's not the "industry" that wants a monopoly, it's the management of this industry. Industry itself has no self-organized will to monopolize. Monopolies are inherently anti-competetive. The reason Ma Bell was broken up in the first place was to protect consumers. It is inherently in the best interest of these companies to raise the "cost to play" once they've formed a monopoly in order to keep small players out and thus kill off competition. Once you're the only provider, you can afford to pay whatever outrageous fees are needed because consumers have no choice but to pay you for service. Look what happened when the government recently removed the Universal Service Fund fee and the big telcos moved to fill that gap to help pay off their taxes. And they're still getting away with "tax recovery" fees, passing on their social responsibility to their customers in order to bolster their bottom line. Can I get a raise of hands here on how many people find today's cable or telco companies (land-line or cell) doing all they can to respond to market pressure and consumer demand instead of just filling their own pockets?

But hey, if you want to go back to renting phones, be my guest...

Re:Welcome Back Ma Bell

[Bryansix]

Right. And this is why the people (Read: Government) should own the lines themselves and only allow telecoms to run services on them. If you think that is a bad idea then you have to go the regulation route and basically force the telecoms to get their grubby hands off the lines they "Own" (Read: The taxpayers paid for most of those lines) and to let any service provider into any region. This way while one player in the market may own the infrastructure, it is not of benefit to them because they are forced to offer that infrastructure at cost to the competition. Will the Telecoms have a fit at hearing these plans? Yes. But seriously who cares. This is for the good of the country and once again it was the people of this country who subsidized most of those lines in the first place. We should get to use them how we like.

That ain't no concession

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

including a promise to observe 'network neutrality' principles,

That's not a concession - that's an attempt to head off binding legislation with a 'promise' that is easily broken once the merger is past the point of no return. They want to have their cake and eat it too.

Re:That ain't no concession

[mgbastard]

FTA:

A greater commitment to network neutrality, or nondiscrimination involving Internet traffic. AT&T said it would "maintain a neutral network and neutral routing in its wireline broadband Internet access service" for two years.

Two years? Hah. That's so paltry, we should all feel insulted. They probably wouldn't even be able to effect the major technology change on their network to disrupt neutrality for that long anyway. Might as well promise according to plan. That promise should be perpetual and binding.

All of their promises, excepting the 2.5ghz auction are without substance, and that is suspect. They had already announced repatriating those jobs. Naked DSL for a whopping 30 months. Whew whee! So they'll get more people accusomted to broadband phone and tv services, and then take away the network neutral, unbundled option, forcing them on to their bundle after 30 months. At least we know their marketing strategy! I don't really understand why they are willing to cede the 2.5ghz... best guess is they intend to acquire that 'unrelated' entity after they build out sites on that 2.5ghz wimax. That goodwill asset booked on mystery carrier X will underwrite a lot of financing of cell sites!

Slimeball business monopolists. (eat me)

Some 'consession'....

[trianglman]

A two year commitment to net neutrality is just a bunch of hot air, if consumer advocacy groups accept something like this they have obviously been drinking the kool-aid. Net neutrality to be reviewed in two years and would need to be revoked would be a concession, this needing to be reinforced two years from now is nothing.

Not to mention the other bs in this agreement:
$20 DSL for consumers whether they sign up for other services or not - when you are an effective monopoly in the area, does it matter if signing up for other services is required?
Repatriate 3,000 outsourced jobs - when you are dropping 10,000 jobs, 3,000 is a drop in the bucket.
And, going back to the net neutrality clause, 'AT&T said it would "maintain a neutral network and neutral routing in its wireline broadband Internet access service"' - sounds to me like they are trying to leave all sorts of wiggle room here...

I promise I'll pull out...

[TheWoozle]

...c'mon baby!

It sounds like the FCC needs to invoke the "no glove/no love" rule.