FCC approves AT&T/BellSouth merger
The deal is done. Yesterday afternoon, the FCC voted to approve the massive AT&T/BellSouth merger. The vote came only after AT&T offered a range of additional conditions meant to satisfy the Democratic commissioners. But just because the vote was unanimous, don't assume that the commissioners were all thrilled with the outcome.
Commissioner Copps, one of the two Democrats, said, "When it comes to consolidation among communications giants, we operate in a world that is certainly not of my choosing." He went on to blast the FCC for the way it went about the entire process, and he was appalled that neither the FCC nor the Department of Justice initially planned to impose any conditions upon one of the largest telecommunications mergers in history.
"It became clear to Commissioner Adelstein and me that if there were going to be any consumer-friendly results from the transaction," Copps said in a statement after the vote, "it would be up to us to represent and deliver upon the many concerns that consumers had expressed to the Commission."
The Republicans, Martin and Tate, not surprisingly held a different view. To them, the merger conditions themselves were the basic problem; they would "turn the clock backward to rate regulations of a decade past."
In the Republican view, the merger will create more competition in the broadband and video markets by producing a robust competitor to cable and satellite service. This is in line with the FCC's recent push to promote competition between different types of service rather than among them.
The two commissioners singled out the AT&T network neutrality concession, specifically, as a bad idea. "The conditions regarding net-neutrality have very little to do with the merger at hand and very well may cause greater problems than the speculative problems they seek to address," wrote the two commissioners in a joint statement. "These conditions are simply not warranted by current market conditions and may deter facilities investment."
:source: Source: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061230-8523.html
