from the because-fulfilling-promises-is-hard dept: Weve covered in the past how Verizon has a long history of making promises to regulators to get special deals, and then never delivering. Usually these promises involve providing high speed fiber to the home connections, for which they get massive tax breaks and subsidies... and then never delivering. And, if people finally point out that it didnt deliver, it lobbies to drop the requirements that it had agreed to abide by (but never actually did). Of course, theres a very similar story with AT&T, and telecom analyst Bruce Kushnick, whos been the leading voice on these broken promises for years, has the details. In fact, what he notes is that AT&T has made some rather specific promises about providing broadband to get approval of mergers, but has never delivered. And now its doing the same for its attempted merger with DirecTV. He notes that, first, AT&T (then called SBC) promised a massive fiber broadband in 2004, as part of convincing the FCC to kill off open access requirements for fiber optic networks. So did BellSouth (eventually bought up by AT&T). And yet, the numbers they promised were never met. Because, of course they werent. Then, when the AT&T was buying BellSouth a few years later, it promised to offer 100% broadband penetration. https://techdirt/articles/20140620/17592427642/everytime-att-wants-federal-approval-merger-policy-it-promises-its-necessary-to-deliver-100-broadband-then-doesnt-deliver.shtml
Posted on: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 05:32:26 +0000
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