FCC chief seeks to break tie on AT&T: BellSouth
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U.S. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin has sought a ruling that could permit a recused commissioner to cast a tie-breaking vote allowing AT&T Inc.  to acquire BellSouth Corp. , an agency official told Reuters on Friday.
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Late Friday, the Federal Communications Commission's general counsel, on prompting from the chairman, ruled that a commissioner who had recused himself from proceedings on the proposed AT&T/BellSouth merger may now participate in the vote. Commissioner Robert McDowell was formerly an employee of the lobbying group CompTel, that has been on record as opposing such mergers.
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By The Associated Press  SAN ANTONIO - After an acquisition binge that transformed the smallest Baby Bell into a telecommunications heavyweight, AT&T Inc. is undergoing another change today: a new chief executive.
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WASHINGTON (CBS.MW) - Standard &amp; Poor&#39;s on Tuesday cut the debt rating of BellSouth and SBC Communications, citing stiff competition and potential problems in absorbing AT&amp;T Wireless.
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Verizon will be able to compete against AT&#38;T, the exclusive carrier of the iPhone, with its advanced 3G services, CEO says.
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(InfoWorld) - The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC)Â should resist calls to impose net neutrality regulations on broadband providers because such rules could hurt the Internet, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)Â said Thursday. The DOJ, in a brief filed with the FCC, said net neutrality rules could "inefficiently skew investment, delay innovation, and diminish consumer welfare." Rules that would prohibit broadband providers from giving priority to their own Internet traffic and prohibit them from blocking or slowing competitors' traffic could also prevent providers from charging fees for priority service, the DOJ said. This could, in turn, cause fees to increase to all broadband users, the DOJ said. "Free market competition, unfettered by unnecessary governmental regulatory restraints, is the best way to foster innovation and development of the Internet," the DOJ said. Net neutrality rules could also discourage broadband providers from investing in new, high-speed services and keep providers from managing their networks efficiently, the DOJ said. The DOJ's comments were in response toÂ an FCC inquiry, launched in March, about whether there's a need for net neutrality regulations. Individuals and organizations have filed more than 27,800 comments in the net-neutrality inquiry, many of them from people who want the FCC to impose net-neutrality rules. Some Internet-based companies and consumer groups have argued that net-neutrality rules are needed after the FCC and U.S. Supreme Court in 2005 did away with regulations that required incumbent broadband providers to share their networks with competing providers. Several telecom executives have complained that Internet companies are not adequately paying network owners for using their pipes. Public Knowledge, a consumer-rights group and net-neutrality advocate, said the DOJ doesn't seem to recognize that most U.S. consumers have few choices for broadband providers. "It is at odds with reality for a Justice Department that approved the largest telecommunications merger in history with a mere press release to now claim that market forces and antitrust enforcement will be able to protect the free and open Internet," Gigi Sohn, Public Knowledge's president, said. "A more vigorous antitrust analysis would have recognized there is a market failure and would have resulted in conditions on the AT&T takeover of BellSouth that would have benefited consumers and Internet companies." The DOJ has failed to recognize that net neutrality would protect consumers and Internet companies from discrimination, she added. "Perhaps the DOJ does not recall that there is very little in the way of market forces to protect consumers," Sohn said. The DOJ, however, said there's little evidence of the need for net-neutrality rules, with only a "few isolated examples" of broadband providers blocking Web content from competitors. "Proponents of 'net neutrality' regulation have failed to show that a sufficient case exists for imposing the sorts of broad marketplace restrictions that have been proposed," the DOJ filing said. In recent years, the DOJ has proposed its own regulations for the Internet. In mid-2006, the DOJ floated a proposal that would require ISPs to retain the Web histories of their users for two years as a way to aid law enforcement investigations. That proposal met resistance from ISPs.
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ASHINGTON - The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will require incumbent telephone carriers to continue offering parts of their networks to competitors while the commission rewrites those network-sharing rules.
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U.S. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin has sought a ruling that could permit a recused commissioner to cast a tie-breaking vote allowing AT&T Inc. to acquire BellSouth Corp., an agency official told Reuters on Friday.
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By HARRY R. WEBER Associated Press  ATLANTA -- AT&T Inc., fresh from swallowing rival BellSouth, isn't planning another acquisition of a major competitor, its chief executive, Edward E. Whitacre Jr., said Monday.    Whitacre wouldn't rule one out, however.
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Local phone giant hopes a television revolution will keep encroaching cable providers at bay.
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Complaints that poor and expensive communications in the Marshall Islands are holding back development have prompted a push to break up the government&#39;s telecommunications monopoly.
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The Federal Communications  Commission chairman said on Friday he wants to make it possible  for small and independently owned businesses to lease  television spectrum from broadcasters, to promote diversity in  the industry.
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The nation&#39;s top telecommunications regulator said yesterday he will push -- before the next president is inaugurated -- to protect fledgling Internet telephone
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For months, Verizon Communications Inc. has been pushing legislation that would shift control of the cable franchising process from local to state officials, telling legislators that the current system is a major obstacle to competition.
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Citing a need to nurture the emerging, "revolutionary" voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) industry, FCC chairman Michael Powell is calling for regulations that would grant the federal government greater control.
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U.S. Federal Communications Commissioner Robert McDowell will be permitted to cast the tie- breaking vote on AT&T Inc.'s  proposed acquisition of BellSouth Corp., the agency's general counsel said on Friday.
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The Federal Communications Commission is slated to approve the $67 billion purchase of BellSouth by telecom giant AT&T, formerly known as SBC. Shareholders approved the merger in July and expected government regulators to demand the combined company shed some assets.