Net Neutrality 10-15-2006

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FCC Stalled on AT&T-BellSouth Merger Vote

The . . . special [FCC] Commission meeting slated for [Oct. 13] to vote on the AT&T-BellSouth merger didn’t take place. Chairman Kevin Martin . . . is presumably still negotiating with Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps, the two Democrats who want conditions placed on the merger.

The two commissioners asked for a delay so that they could study the last-minute proposal submitted by AT&T yesterday that would impose some conditions on the company before it can absorb BellSouth.

[ . . . ]

Update: Chairman Kevin Martin has agreed to postpone the vote until a November 3 meeting. He also agreed to put AT&T’s last-minute conditions out for public comment.

The conditions that AT&T has proposed are quite interesting. In an odd nod to net neutrality, AT&T seemingly agreed to offer a two-year period when onsumers “could surf anywhere on the Internet and use any legal applications with the high-speed service.”

AT&T’s proposed conditions, released Friday, included freezing some wholesale prices for access to its networks for 30 months, offering high-speed Internet access to all homes in its 22-state home territory by 2008 and a pledge not to ask the FCC to lift rules for network access by rivals for 30 months.

The company raised the possibility of a condition addressing consumers’ access to Internet content, an issue known as Net neutrality. It agreed to a two-year FCC condition for its last acquisition, guaranteeing customers could surf anywhere on the Internet and use any legal applications with the high-speed service.

I haven’t seen the conditions, but seriously, AT&T can’t actually be saying that consumers are free to roam the Internet for only two more years, can it? What happens when the two year clock runs out?
[ . . . ]
Update: AT&T issued a statement late this afternoon attempting to minimize the delay. . . . AT&T also said it is open to discussing “reasonable conditions on the merger in order to obtain unanimous approval.”

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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