FCC Chairman Martin and Commissioner Tate issued a joint statement regarding the recently approved merger of AT&T and BellSouth that made AT&T the largest telecommunications conglomerate in the US. The back story is this: The merger was previously stalemated because democratic FCC commissioners Adelstein and Copps, at the bequest of consumer and advocacy groups, refused to let the merger go through without provisions for net neutrality. The merger occurred earlier this week shortly after AT&T agreed to maintain neutral network business practices for two years.
Martin and Tate:
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. These conditions are simply not warranted by current market conditions and may deter facilities investment. Accordingly, it gives us pause to approve last-minute remedies to address the ill-defined problem net neutrality proponents seek to resolve.
Adelstein:
A historic merger warrants historic conditions. I don’t pretend that we addressed every possible issue presented here or that it is possible, or even appropriate in this context, to try to rectify years of decisions that have undercut competition. Yet, drawing on the full record, I have tried to counter-balance the effects of this transaction by asking for meaningful conditions that protect the open and neutral character of the Internet, benefit consumers by promoting affordable broadband services, and preserve competitive choices for residential and business consumers.
Network Neutrality is an extremely complicated issue (see my previous post w/ video for one side of the argument). There are good arguments for and against regulation, but my bias leans toward protecting the historical underdog, the citizen, contra big business.
