AT&T Issues Scathing Response To FCC Report

An anonymous reader writes "AT&T has issued a scathing letter in response to the FCC's decision to release a staff report on its findings surrounding AT&T's planned $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile USA. 'We expected that the AT&T-T-Mobile transaction would receive careful, considered, and fair analysis,' Jim Cicconi, AT&T Senior Executive Vice President of External & Legislative Affairs, said. 'Unfortunately, the preliminary FCC Staff Analysis offers none of that.'"

Comments

Make sure to read the bottom of the page

[mysidia]

For Sprint's short and sweet response, compared to ATT's long-winded vague casting of aspersions against the FCC staff.

The FCC staff’s Analysis and Findings provide a careful, substantive analysis of AT&T’s proposed takeover of T-Mobile, consistent with the FCC’s role as the independent, expert agency responsible for such merger reviews. Rather than accept the expert agency’s Analysis and Findings, AT&T has chosen to make baseless claims about the FCC’s process. [...]

Re:Money

[ProfM]

Yeah right.

Open Secrets classifies the corporation as a fence sitter when it comes to politics, although during the 2008 presidential election, Barack Obama was clearly the telco's favorite.

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/ATT-Top-Campaign-Contributor-Since-1990-110351

Re:That's a rude response

[whoever57]

They should break that company up again, it seems the first time wasn't enough to curb their arrogance.

While I agree that AT&T should be broken up, the "again" part isn't really correct. The company that now calls itself AT&T isn't really the same company as the one that was broken up.

Re:Question: Are these committments binding? I dou

[larry bagina]

The FCC's mission is to "make available so far as possible, to all the people of the United States, without discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex, rapid, efficient, Nation-wide, and world-wide wire and radio communication services with adequate facilities at reasonable charges.".

You may notice that it is not their mission to ensure full employment.

If only they had made more friends

[mykos]

Perhaps they'd get some sympathy if they hadn't burned all their bridges with anyone who might listen. Even their own customers hate them.
Maybe they should spend that $39 billion on upgrading their infrastructure instead of eliminating competition.

Re:Money

[artor3]

One interesting thing to look at is the percentage of an individual politician's money that comes from small donors. Contrary to what some would expect, it doesn't split by party lines (nor by candidate sanity). Instead it gives you a good, non-partisan view of just how beholden a politician is to their corporate donors. Because while the corporations may always give lots of money to both sides, if (for example) Generic Democrat #1 pisses them off, they'll just stop giving to him, and give to Generic Democrat #2 instead. Assuming Generic Democrat #1 wants to keep his job, he either needs to play nice with the big donors, or bring in lots of small ones.

Obama, Ron Paul, Gingrich, and Bachman (I told you sanity didn't matter) all get around 50% of their money from small donors. Rick Perry and Mitt Romney get 90+% of their money from major corporations and billionaires. That should tell you all you need to know about those two.

Huntsman is also in the 90+% camp, but in his case it might just be lack of name recognition. This method really only works for the big names, since the small players have trouble reaching out to individual donors through no fault of their own.

AT&T didn't offer home ISDN

[YesIAmAScript]

The old AT&T was broken up before ISDN to homes came along. It was the "baby bells" offering you ISDN. Although in my area I had DSL in 1996 or 7, I can't remember which. From a baby bell (Pac Bell).

Re:AT&T didn't offer home ISDN

[sjames]

Actually, ISDN was like fusion. It was the super futuristic up and coming new thing in the '70s before the break-up (that's what the video phone was supposed to use). And in the '80s. And in the early '90s. For some of that time, it was in theory possible to order it, but they set the price to discourage it and if you ordered anyway, it wasn't "yet' available in your area most of the time (but, Oh yes, it will be RSN! Pinkie swear!)

Then DSL came along and ISDN went away.