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Search results for: “bellsouth”

  • It’s Confirmed — AT&T Planning To Gobble Up BellSouth, Public Interest Be Damned

    AT&T confirmed today that it plans to buy BellSouth and the remaining portion of Cingular wireless that it doesn’t already own, for $67 billion. If the deal goes through, AT&T will be both the biggest conventional telephone and the #1 wireless/cellular company in the US. Marketwatch is reporting that analysts it has talked to don’t…

  • This Blog Could Terminate My DSL

    Ars Technica reports on a change in the terms of service for AT&T broadband customers that gives the company the company to terminate service for anyone who “tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries.” Yes, it’s overbroad, overly vague, and therefore probably too difficult to enforce across…

  • Does the American “Market” Abhor Competition?

    Mergers, mergers, mergers. There’s been talk for quite some time about the nation’s two direct broadcast satellite (DBS) providers–DirecTV and Dish Network–merging. More recently the talk has been about the nation’s only two satellite radio providers merging. Today, there’s a leak from the companies that a merger between XM and Sirius may be announced soon,…

  • Uncommon Candor

    I’m sitting in a session on the FCC featuring current Democratic commissioners Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps, with former commissioner Gloria Tristani as moderator. I’m very impressed with the degree of candor that Commissioners Copps and Adelstein have expressed at this conference in mulitple sessions, on topics ranging from payola to the BellSouth/AT&T merger. These…

  • Federal Consolidation Commissioner

    It isn’t enough to drag his feet on obligations to inform and engage the public on the media ownership proceeding. Now FCC Chair Kevin Martin is ready to sign off on the proposed AT&T – BellSouth merger without imposing a single condition. While he may have a bit more political savvy than his predecessor, Martin…

  • Telcos Exploiting Their Bully Pulpit

    Just read an interesting anecdote reblogged at SaveTheInternet. Apparently, AT&T’s astroturf group TV 4US is now telemarketing to ask people: “The internet is going to be more expensive, because big companies like Microsoft and Google are wasting all our bandwidth. Do you think consumers should pay for that? Or should the big companies that are…

  • The Internet as We Know It Is an Accident, but the Design Isn’t. For the Telcos, It’s Just an Excuse.

    Earlier this week Tim Berners-Lee, the architecht of the world-wide web, posted a short essay on network neutrality. Like other wise commentators such as Vint Cerf and Larry Lessig, Berners-Lee argues that without net neutrality being law the US’s dominant telephone companies will inhibit the future introduction of innovative internet technologies all in service of…

  • Net Neutrality To Be the FCC’s Responsibility? Or Nobody’s Responsibility?

    On Monday Sen. Commerce Comittee Chair Ted Stevens told reporters at a press conference that he’s considering charging the FCC with protecting network neutrality. He was speaking at an event sponsored by CompTel, which represents the smaller telecom companies that compete with the big Bells like Verizon and AT&T. For it’s part, CompTel supports legislating…

  • Recreating a Monopoly

    Remember the old Ma Bell, AT&T? Before the 1980s we pretty much all had the same phone company and one long distance company with pretty high rates. You could only get your phone from the phone company, and this monopoly was protected by the federal government. That looks like the current dream of the new…

  • mediageek radioshow headlines: Indecency at the Senate; Google Won’t Pay Telcos; Stern Back on FM… Pirate FM

    These are the media news headlines as read on the mediageek radioshow on Jan. 20, 2006: Indecency Day at the Senate Commerce Committee; Consumer Groups Prefer A La Carte; Google Says It Won’t Pay Telcos for Consumer Bandwidth; Stern Gets Pirated. Indecency Day at the Senate Commerce Committee Decency, and indecency was the big topic…