The FCC is reversing the break-up of AT&T...

[Eric J in MN]

...without even forcing AT&T to play fair (no Net Neutrality required for merger).

Say NO:
http://action.freepress.net/campaign/stop_att_merger

[mntleo2]

1. Freakin' Bastards Are At It Again

...I signed the petition. Sheesh

Cat in Seattle

[annabanana]

2. k&r. . . . . .n/t

[bananas]

3. k&r nt

[Imagevision]

4. It must be linked to Jan. 3rd. change of power?!!

[Sydnie]

5. Done n/t

[silverojo]

6. I'm K&R'ing too!

And I signed the petition, of course....

[AtomicKitten]

7. screw AT&T

At the beginning of this year they started giving me grief me about my flat-rate business line until ultimately I changed carriers. They were auditing my lines and said I could not have "equipment" on the line, although contractually I was allowed a FAX machine which is what I had.

Now they are trying to nail me with a retroactive conversion to regular rates to the tune of $20,000.

[snot]

8. Link wasn't working, but got it now -- K & R

[Jeffersons Ghost]

9. K&R... I saw this coming but it is a sad day for it to become formalized...

what about the ruling of Judge Harold Green in Federal Court during Divestiture Hearings? it was never overturned.

[ms liberty]

10. Done n/t

[HamdenRice]

11. No need to worry. AT&T is dead

It is hard for most of us today to even conceive of what AT&T was like at the time it was ordered to break up. ATT was the only long distance carrier, it owned all the regional telephone companies, called baby bells, was the main manufacturer of telecommunications equipment, and owned Bell labs, the most innovative general science and computer innovation laboratory. That's the ATT that was called "Ma Bell," and that Lily Tomlin famously lampooned as a smug operator, answering most complaints with something like, "you can't tell me what to do; I'm the telephone company."

The court order applies mainly to the regional bells, which ATT was forced to divest. Two long distance carriers came into being in the early 1980s and quickly grabbed lots of ATT's market share -- Sprint and MCI. (Interesting side note: the main barrier to entry into long distance was obtaining the rights of way to string fiber optics over long distances. One dying industry that had lots of long, uninterrupted, national rights of way were the railroads. Sprint was originally a spin off of Southern Pacific Railroad -- hence the SPR in Sprint.)

In the early 1990s, ATT sold off bell labs, and shortly thereafter their manufacturing division. Because they were at first very successful at divesting and became more profitable by going along with the government, ATT developed a bizarre philosphy of self-destruction. By the mid 1990s, the regional bells began merging, creating huge blocks of semi-long distance carriers that could compete with ATT. By the mid 1990s, the court order that limited ATT was actually quite unfair because ATT was the only telecom company that had to operate with those limits.

ATT is basically now a mediocre also-ran in the telecom business.

Personal disclosure: I worked in the financial sector in the 1990s, and ATT was a client of my firm. I watched it dismantle itself and make one gigantic mistake after another.

I really wouldn't worry about ATT's ability to merge with other companies at this point.

[On the Road]

12. It's a Moot Point

AT&T shed its local phone and manufacuring businesses in 1984. The long-distance business is dead. They are a relatively small player in wireless.

Ten years from now, the local companies or Baby Bells may in the same shape. I work for one of them, and the economics are driving VoIP and wireless. They will eventually kill the traditional residential phone line --- faster than you may think.

The FCC should support net neutrality. But AT&T is hardly worth a second thought.