The FCC finally capitulated last week and approved the ATT / Bell South Merger. Cingular, jointly owned by the two companies is now folded back to ATT, and may adopt the new/old name ATT Wireless or some such. And the conglomeration of the Regional operating companies born of the AT&T breakup is closer than ever.
There were a couple of sops to the GooGoos — the pro-consumer folks (the Democrats) — on the Commission:
1. The company agreed to sell consumers high speed DSL for $19.95 per month without requiring phone service to be in effect. This commitment lasts for 30 months.
2. The company agree to a “net neutrality” policy for two years. For that period ATT will not sell better service to high volume customers. (The service is overall network traffic and will not affect variable costs for varying speeds on the network.
30 months and two years are better than nothing, certainly but ATT is nothing but patient. Expect to see big bumps in DSL pricing, on the one hand, and pay for enhanced service, on the other hand, once the concession time limits expire. (Right after the 2008 elections for the net neutrality issue.) Of course, the merger was always going to go through in any event, and a couple of years of something is better than nothing.
In the meantime, I suspect that this merger won’t bring particularly better or less expensive communications services to anyone although the return to my meager investments in both companies — all from the original AT&T breakup — may pick up a little enhancement.
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