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

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).