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AT&T CEO Attacks Network Neutrality
Verteiron writes "The former CEO of AT&T, Ed Whitacre, had some interesting remarks to make about Net Neutrality during his parting speech. Choice quotes include his plans for getting anti-neutrality legislation through: "Will Congress let us do it?" Whitacre asks his colleagues. "You bet they will — cuz we don't call it cashin' in. We call it 'deregulation.' "
More information on AT&T's attitude problem and a video of the speech are available. There's no sign that his replacement is any better."
For those Americans here who are of voting age, I suggest you start voicing opinions to congress speak to your management if you are in the telco/networking field and make noise. All this "wah wah wah" on a forum is pointless. Sure I can hear you, the trolls can hear you, but I doubt political parties can hear you. Start filling up those blogs of parties who want to "strike a pose" on the technology sector "We're hip... We have a blog" ... Oh so you do Senator Whatever... Start /.'ing them for straightforward answers, comments and plans. Anything else is just linenoise
Infiltrated dot Net
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
AT&T and all the big telcos can have their net neutrality repealed. In return, AT&T and all the telcos will give back all of the government's money, adjusted for inflation and bearing the prime rate of interest, that was given to them as investments, tax breaks, and other "incentives" to build up their network. Shake on it?
Corporations fall into this same pattern. They have to make the numbers this quarter, THE NUMBERS, YOU DUMB FUCK! COKE IS FOR CLOSERS! etc etc. So that's where you see the fans of deregulation coming in. Have you noticed the dismantling of the rules and regs put in place after the '29 crash to make sure that we wouldn't have another one? With the rules in place, you can have a reasonable profit for years to come. Without the rules you can make a fucking killing...and I guess you'd better hope that goose has a lot of meat on the bones because that's all you'll be eating as the markets struggle to recover.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
No CEO is worth the $20 million buyout to get his ass out the door. Every engineer, sales person, assembly line worker is worth at least double what they get. These people make smart decisions every day that help the company improve process or save money. They just don't get proper recognition, whereas the @#$!ing CEO knows how to blow his own horn and annoy everyone. I wish they would charge the CEO $20 million when they fuck up drastically, it seems only fair.
"but money is the God of Algiers & Mahomet their prophet." - Rich. O'Bryen June 8th 1786
'cause the barriers to entry in this market are so incredibly high that you often have no choice. If two providers (the cable and DSL co for a region) do this, that's sufficient.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
The state I'm living in now "deregulated" by saying that local phone companies had to open their lines to any provider that I choose.
I'd call that very strong regulation. I think it's just a different kind of regulation, but it sure aint deregulation. Deregulation would be saying, "the line's yours. Go ahead and do what you want. Hell, the owners have a right to profit out of their infrastructure!" The company wouldn't open the line up to competition, and you'd be screwed as hell.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
You seem to think that when people claim that "we" went to war for oil, that means that the US went to war for cheaper oil for its citizens. That is not what we mean. We mean that the rich and powerful took us to war to procure a reliable source of oil to sell to US citizens for outrageous profits. See the difference? There is no we. There is them getting rich, and you getting fucked.
And it's not just oil. We have outsourced much of our armed services to private contractors. The military industrial complex is having a field day, and making record profits. Citizens are scared into accepting all sorts of draconian restrictions. Huge bundles of cash simply disappear. The wealthy and well connected profit. And we lose rather than gain security.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Hang on, are you saying that Iraqis are the "murderous, rage infected and hyper-religious chimps"? Because I went all the way through that post before it occurred to me that that you weren't talking about Americans (I am an American, and I am proud of my country, but only up to about 1969. After the moon landing, it's been a pretty steady downhill)
Great God Almighty!!!! Are you hopelessly nuts? We have almost little or no actual news reportage in the US today - especially as opposed to when I was a kid back in the '50s. How many Americans are aware of the (at least) 2 attempted assassination/coups of democratically-elected President Hugo Chavez by the Bush Administration (can you spell o-i-l???)? How many Americans are aware of the second attempt - led by undersecretary of state, Otto Reich and his Cuban-American squads? Erroneously reported in American news as Cuban dissidents being sighted in Caracas at that time!!!! Un-frigging-believable!!!
Great God Almighty!!! Free press??? WTF have you been smoking, dood??? Any intelligent American is forced to read the foreign press and blogosphere for any and all news as the only breaking news in America today concerns either Paris Hilton or the deposition of Anna Nicole Smith's corpse. Nothing, but nothing gets reported in the news.
Forty and fifty years ago that testimony of Monica Goodling before congress (ya know, the one where she testified that the attorney general [Gonzo or AGAG], and the assistant attorney general both committed perjury, that there was massive election fraud ["caging"] and that the US attorneys were replaced to prevent any prosecution of past - and future - election fraud) would have been front-page news for days, if not months. Today, nothing........