The AT&T-Time Warner Merger Must Be Stopped (backchannel.com)

New submitter mirandakatz writes: AT&T's proposed merger with Time Warner is evidence that AT&T doesn't ever plan to invest in fiber to the home, writes Susan Crawford at Backchannel -- and that's just one of many reasons the merger is a catastrophic idea. Crawford writes: "It's hard to think of a single positive thing this merger will accomplish, other than shining a bright light on just how awful the picture is for data transmission in this nation. This deal should be dead on arrival. In fact, AT&T should spare us by dropping the idea now. This merger must not happen."From the report: Think about it. AT&T sells wires to about 51 million homes, far more than any other telephone or cable company in the country. Because of its large presence in many markets, it overlaps with cable companies in many places -- AT&T overlaps with Comcast in 45 percent of Comcast's footprint and with Charter in 52 percent of its footprint. But, after a flurry of debunked press releases, it's totally clear that AT&T has no real interest in upgrading its copper networks to fiber to the home. Its capital expenditures keep going down, not up. (Would you trust the future to a company that doesn't see the need to increase investments in its core business, and instead is content to harvest profit from its subscribers?)

Comments

Transmission is Public Utility

[Anonymous Coward]

Water, Electricity, Gas, Data - it's all at the same level of national importance.
The network should not be in the hands of a profit driven company.

Re: The U.S. government has become weak.

[Mashiki]

What needs to happen in the US is what you guys had back in the 90's and early 00's where the last mile providers were required to rent out their infrastructure to other ISP's. There was an incredible glut of ISP's, and I can remember driving down I75 seeing the billboards for $19.95 5/1 DSL with no caps, and the new higher speed cable connections for $29.95 with no caps. This is what we have running in Canada now, after nearly 14 years with Bell, Rogers, Telus and so on saying "it'll be the death of our companies!!!!!111111" and so on. It hasn't happened, and most recently they got a huge slap in the face when the CRTC told them they must lease last mile FTTN and FTTH to third party ISP's(called TPIA's here).