As part of the AT&T/BellSouth merger that is expected to be approved today, AT&T is now pledging to keep its “wireline broadband Internet access service” neutral.
AT&T joins the trickster pantheon with this move. (Other well known recent tricksters include Br'er Rabbit and Bugs Bunny.)
“Wireline broadband Internet access service” means traditional copper-wire digital subscriber line access provided by phone companies like AT&T. It's not very fast, but it's much faster than dial-up, and AT&T and Verizon sell it to a lot of people.
But cable internet access is more popular in this country, and although the phone companies are closing the gap they'd like to compete more effectively with the cable industry.
Hence AT&T's big push to announce a “massive access network upgrade, dubbed Project Lightspeed, back in 2004.” (Light Reading story here.) The idea was that AT&T would put in fiber optic lines that would allow data to travel much more quickly to households across the country.
AT&T renamed the service “U-verse” in 2005, and has promised to roll it out to 15 to 20 markets before the end of 2006. It's hurriedly doing this in San Jose — press release from a week ago is here. When you read the press release, you see that U-verse includes (is “bundled with,” in the now-standard term) high speed internet access. But it's not plain old internet access — it's not naked or neutral or commoditized. It's “AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet U-verse Enabled.”
That's AT&T's new high-speed internet access — AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet U-verse Enabled. It'll have speeds of up to 6 Mbps for downloading (not very fast — Singapore, Japan, and Korea and lots of other places have 100 Mbps and more available). It'll use all kinds of “middleware” from Alcatel and Microsoft and other companies to prioritize and privilege particular packets. It cannot be purchased separately — “purchase of AT&T U-verse TV required.”
If some nascent Google/YouTube application — some now-garage-bound online thingie we can't even imagine yet – wants to reach AT&T U-verse subscribers at these high speeds, it'll have to strike a deal. It'll have to ask for permission.
This means that naked, neutral, non-prioritized internet access (for AT&T customers, anyway) stays at 2001 speeds. AT&T has no incentive to upgrade its existing DSL facilities — it wants to move everyone to this new U-verse.
As AT&T says, “the new U-verse enabled AT&T Yahoo!(R) High Speed internet builds on AT&T's position as the nation's leading provider of broadband DSL.” It's not the same as the “wireline broadband Internet access service” that AT&T is willing to keep neutral.
I applaud the consumer advocates who got AT&T to promise neutrality as to DSL — but I think they may have missed a major battleground.
AT&T is effectively saying, “We'll keep existing 'broadband' access neutral. But when it comes to our new super-duper 'AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet U-verse Enabled,' well, that's not up for negotiation. We need to make money there. 'Enabled' and 'broadband' are not the same thing.”
I understand that the fix is in and the merger will go through. It would be great if someone, somewhere, realized that neutral high speed internet access would be good as a matter of economic and social policy in this country. But getting there will take leadership that we don't now have.
[Update -- I've been reminded that it's a BIG DEAL to get AT&T to make any concesssions, and I certainly agree with that. The precedential value of this merger deal on neutrality is important. I hope that the next step will be general-application legislation that is clearer as to what exactly has to be neutral -- and I hope that legislation will include all transport to the internet in the sweep of a clear neutrality mandate.]
Does anyone know whether a Japanese based electronic communications company is entitled to seek a general authorisation to operate in EU member states?
At the risk of sounding a bit “beagly”, isn't the AT&T/SBC merger a done deal? Surely you're referring to the AT&T/BellSouth merger (or maybe I'm just missing something).
Though it's understandably confusing (sic); like watching the T-1000 terminator re-assemble.
The nice thing about this deal is that everybody can claim victory since nobody knows what net neutrality really means. It's a great day for democracy.
These relationships for lack of a better term have actually been happening since the internet began. Remember UUNet? Ever try getting peering with them? The current ATT has the ability to charge a tariff/toll for using their infrastructure to get to your customers. At some point Google will probably do the same thing with their free wifi access. And sooner or later the market will come up with a better, more efficient media because being a monopoly is a short lived journey at the top. How many times has ATT been broken up? How long will it take for this new ATT to be broken up or sold off in pieces? It is ironic. Old MaBell, the OG of AT&Ts was broken up to Regional Operating Co's., RBOCs. And now the new ATT is a conglomoration of RBOCs rolled up. Dejavu or what?
Imagine if they start filtering applications, content, services, or go any deeper than filtering at the ASN level…especially if they offer competing services.
Actually with the New Regulatory Framework they don't have to get a license or permission. They just have to register in a member state. So yes it's very easy to get into the EU market and any and all of the larger US players have.
no. if you need help with a case, let me know at veni at-my-domain veni.com
I believe it's only for two years, not forever.
It may be enough, if there's new legislature, but who knows how fast the cable operators lobby will work… against it
So let me get this straight: I'm quite familiar with the 2002 EU regulatory framework – it guarantees the freedom to provide elecronic communications networks and services. But this guarantee extends to non European companies as well? Is there anything in EU law that says the guarantee of the freedom to provide services only applies to European entities?
Good Article. Recently i've visited http://www.wfitv.com which has lots of internet tv listings and worth watching
Tomo certainly has a point – how many times HAS this conglomerate been broken up for breaking anti-trust regulations, most frequently those having to do with monopolies and using them as leverage against your customers? And with this particular stunt, one is even tempted to put them into the category of negotiators as slippery as the old Devil himself (where is Daniel Webster when we need him? Or at least Charlie Daniels). In defense of those who negotiated this deal in the first place, who’s going to be slippery enough in their forethought to anticipate this kind of double-dealing? Had they closed this loophole, AT&T would only have found another. I stopped using AT&T back in the early 90s. And yet, wouldn’t you know it – they’ve managed to co-opt Cingular, my cell phone company (at least for the moment). I can only hope that some of you are right and that the market will eventually correct the chances companies like this have to take advantage of new technology for gouging.