AT&T CEO Attacks Network Neutrality

Verteiron writes "The former CEO of AT&T, Ed Whitacre, had some interesting remarks to make about Net Neutrality during his parting speech. Choice quotes include his plans for getting anti-neutrality legislation through: "Will Congress let us do it?" Whitacre asks his colleagues. "You bet they will — cuz we don't call it cashin' in. We call it 'deregulation.' " More information on AT&T's attitude problem and a video of the speech are available. There's no sign that his replacement is any better."

Subject

Why does AT&T hate America?

Re:Subject

Why does AT&T hate America?

Because there's a higher profit margin in exploiting America than loving it.

That's not what "war for oil" means

You seem to think that when people claim that "we" went to war for oil, that means that the US went to war for cheaper oil for its citizens. That is not what we mean. We mean that the rich and powerful took us to war to procure a reliable source of oil to sell to US citizens for outrageous profits. See the difference? There is no we. There is them getting rich, and you getting fucked.

And it's not just oil. We have outsourced much of our armed services to private contractors. The military industrial complex is having a field day, and making record profits. Citizens are scared into accepting all sorts of draconian restrictions. Huge bundles of cash simply disappear. The wealthy and well connected profit. And we lose rather than gain security.

Re:That's not what "war for oil" means

Hoo, boy. Turning off the oil taps would definitely fuck with the world's economy, for sure. But, the thing that I have come to realize is that nations, peoples and religions rarely fight each other. The rich and powerful of the world are engaged in a great game. We are their pawns. While it looks like they are fighting each other, when it comes down to it, that is a game. They are fighting to stay on top, and us on the bottom.

My point? They will never make a move in the great game that weakens their position against us, the little people. No matter how much it would hurt their opponents. That's just the way the game is played, and any ruling class person who defects and takes the side of the little people is anathema, outlaw, outside the rules of the game.

So the oil owners will never turn off the taps because it hurts their position vis a vis the rest of us, even if it wins them some points in the game. There would be too much chaos, rioting, and overturning of established orders all over the world. The powerful in the rest of the world would put aside all differences and gang up on the outlaws to restore order.

Re:stay on your own side of the pond

remember that we also have the most well developed (maybe overly developed) news and information system in the world.

Great God Almighty!!!! Are you hopelessly nuts? We have almost little or no actual news reportage in the US today - especially as opposed to when I was a kid back in the '50s. How many Americans are aware of the (at least) 2 attempted assassination/coups of democratically-elected President Hugo Chavez by the Bush Administration (can you spell o-i-l???)? How many Americans are aware of the second attempt - led by undersecretary of state, Otto Reich and his Cuban-American squads? Erroneously reported in American news as Cuban dissidents being sighted in Caracas at that time!!!! Un-frigging-believable!!!

...I'd guess that our (generally) staunch stand in favor of free press...

Great God Almighty!!! Free press??? WTF have you been smoking, dood??? Any intelligent American is forced to read the foreign press and blogosphere for any and all news as the only breaking news in America today concerns either Paris Hilton or the deposition of Anna Nicole Smith's corpse. Nothing, but nothing gets reported in the news.

Forty and fifty years ago that testimony of Monica Goodling before congress (ya know, the one where she testified that the attorney general [Gonzo or AGAG], and the assistant attorney general both committed perjury, that there was massive election fraud ["caging"] and that the US attorneys were replaced to prevent any prosecution of past - and future - election fraud) would have been front-page news for days, if not months. Today, nothing........

Re:stay on your own side of the pond

Hang on, are you saying that Iraqis are the "murderous, rage infected and hyper-religious chimps"? Because I went all the way through that post before it occurred to me that that you weren't talking about Americans (I am an American, and I am proud of my country, but only up to about 1969. After the moon landing, it's been a pretty steady downhill)

New boss is the same as the old boss

I guess if they wanted to change, the old boss could have done that; Since they don't want to change the company's direction, it's just logical to get a new CEO with the same mind.

Attacking the network

I once tried attacking network neutrality, however I ended up in hospital having a wifi antenna removed from parts indescribable.

Re:Attacking the network

Hmmm... that does ring a Bell.

Re:Attacking the network

Speaking of attacking and given AT&T's logo:

That's no moon, it's a space station!

Good thing

no other companies will work with AT&T since they are evil and who would want to be associated with an evil company...oh wait...

:-) It's a joke....relax...

Welcome to the future.

C:\>ping google.com

Resolved "google.com" to [64.233.167.99]

Hello! Welcome to AT&T PingSelect(tm). Please enter in milliseconds your desired ping time to website "google.com".

>25

Unfortunately, website "google.com" is not available at that ping time. Please contact the website administrator and advise them to upgrade their AT&T PingSelect(tm) package if you wish to ping website "google.com" at this value. Please select another time in milliseconds.

>50

Unfortunately, website "google.com" is not available at that ping time. Please contact the website administrator and advise them to upgrade their AT&T PingSelect(tm) package if you wish to ping website "google.com" at this value. Please select another time in milliseconds.

>100

Pinging google.com [64.233.167.99] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 64.233.167.99: bytes=32 time=100ms TTL=247
Reply from 64.233.167.99: bytes=32 time=101ms TTL=247
Reply from 64.233.167.99: bytes=32 time=101ms TTL=247
Reply from 64.233.167.99: bytes=32 time=100ms TTL=247

Ping statistics for 64.233.167.99:
        Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
        Minimum = 100ms, Maximum = 101ms, Average = 101ms

C:\>

Well

'cause the barriers to entry in this market are so incredibly high that you often have no choice. If two providers (the cable and DSL co for a region) do this, that's sufficient.

flashbacks to Bush's speeches in F911 anyone?

"There's a problem. It's called Net Neutrality," Whitacre told the heirs to AT&T's telecommunications empire. "Well, frankly, we say to hell with that. We're gonna put up some toll booths and start charging admission."

"Will Congress let us do it?" Whitacre asks his colleagues. "You bet they will -- cuz we don't call it cashin' in. We call it 'deregulation.' "

This sounds like the kind of stuff I'd make up if I wanted to put words in his mouth. What next? "First you get the money, then you get the power, then you get the internets."

Reminds me of Bush's candid comments we got to see in Fahrenheit 9-11. "This is an impressive crowd - the haves and the have-mores. Some people call you the elites; I call you my base."

Question: did this guy know there was a camera rolling?

Re:flashbacks to Bush's speeches in F911 anyone?

Of course he knew . . it was a joke given at a charity event where the speakers traditionally give lighthearted speeches.

What's all the fuss?

I mean look at how well "deregulation" worked in the airline industry? More people can fly, flights are cheaper, to more destinations... crammed into tiny airplanes with more people... lousier food... more delays... bad customer service... bankruptcies... never mind.

Re:What's all the fuss?

Actually deregulation of the airlines has helped, the big airlines have crumbled because they can't compete with the smaller more nimble airlines. This is the way it should be.

Air travel isn't a natural monopoly though.

Re:What's all the fuss?

I mean look at how well "deregulation" worked in the airline industry? More people can fly, flights are cheaper, to more destinations... crammed into tiny airplanes with more people... lousier food... more delays... bad customer service... bankruptcies... never mind.

We need to work on the America's word association skills. Right wing radio has done a pretty good job of making "liberal" a pejorative. I want to see the same thing done with a couple of other words. Outsourcing should be known as "fuck America, I got mine." Deregulation should be known as "Enron." Republican leadership should be known as "cock and ball torture." And any use of the phrase "you have to pay top dollar to attract top talent" when used to describe executive compensation at a company should be accompanied by the phrase "and we pay the people who actually make the product or provide the service bottom dollar because, hey, fuck the poor; they're poor, aren't they?"

Re:What's all the fuss?

No CEO is worth the $20 million buyout to get his ass out the door. Every engineer, sales person, assembly line worker is worth at least double what they get. These people make smart decisions every day that help the company improve process or save money. They just don't get proper recognition, whereas the @#$!ing CEO knows how to blow his own horn and annoy everyone. I wish they would charge the CEO $20 million when they fuck up drastically, it seems only fair.

Re:What's all the fuss?

I remember studying the airlines in detail during business school as a "how not to run an industry." Basically the major airlines started to try and slit each other throats with price wars and frequant flyer programs, etc.. And the major players pretty much did. Other carriers, like southwest, didn't play that ballgame manage to make a profit. Hell, for years there was a congressional bill that prevented Southwest from flying in and out of Love field in Dallas without making a stop in within so many miles of Dallas. Now that's repealed, it's cheaper and easier for us to fly to visit family.

Kind of like the Automotive industry has in the past few years when they started offering those 0% deals. GM figured their financing cost of capital was low enough that, yeah, sure, they'd bleed, but it would be stabbing the heart of Chrysler and the slitting the jugglar at Ford when those companies matched the offer. Why? Proably because some idiot was worried about next quarter's marketshare numbers instead of making a profit.

Well it worked, but the japs didn't take the bait and now what's happening? And the auto industry ain't regulated. There are some businesses that make really stupid decisions. No amount of regulation is going to stop people from being stupid.

Where I am now, I can have my phone service with one company and DSL through another. My Dad lives in a state where it's a regulated local monopoly and his phone company as screwed the customers for years in DSL rates and the cable company isn't much better since they know the customers really don't have any other choices. If he lived 2 miles north of where he does, he could get DSL for $30 a month where he's paying about $45 now for the same speed. The state I'm living in now "deregulated" by saying that local phone companies had to open their lines to any provider that I choose.

Re:What's all the fuss?

The state I'm living in now "deregulated" by saying that local phone companies had to open their lines to any provider that I choose.

I'd call that very strong regulation. I think it's just a different kind of regulation, but it sure aint deregulation. Deregulation would be saying, "the line's yours. Go ahead and do what you want. Hell, the owners have a right to profit out of their infrastructure!" The company wouldn't open the line up to competition, and you'd be screwed as hell.

Voting time

For those Americans here who are of voting age, I suggest you start voicing opinions to congress speak to your management if you are in the telco/networking field and make noise. All this "wah wah wah" on a forum is pointless. Sure I can hear you, the trolls can hear you, but I doubt political parties can hear you. Start filling up those blogs of parties who want to "strike a pose" on the technology sector "We're hip... We have a blog" ... Oh so you do Senator Whatever... Start /.'ing them for straightforward answers, comments and plans. Anything else is just linenoise

Re:Voting time

Well, you can certainly fill up your Senator or Congressman's inbox with emails, but you've got to remember that rarely do they actually read all their own email. Usually it's screened by their staff for content first, so they get a sanitized picture of what constituents want. It's better to hunt these people down on the campaign trail and ask them pointed questions before news cameras. Also, even if they do "read" all their email, unless that's followed up by actual votes there's little chance of any great impact. I don't think either party is courting the "Internet voter".

We need an appropriate response

I suggest we combine some tactics that are known to work.

Back in ancient times, the UAW would target ONE company for a strike, in order to get an agreement that could be used later as leverage with the others. Say what you like about the state of the auto industry today, but the tactic worked with great effect.

Next, we have the NRA, and their targeted boycotts. When they were unhappy with Smith and Wesson's push for high-tech gun locks, they instituted a very effective boycott. Their manufacturing slowed to a crawl as sales tanked. S&W was sold at a fire sale price as a result. The CEO landed at some lawnmower company. I heard the NRA considered boycotting the lawnmowers as well.

We can't boycott all of the ISPs at the same time, but we COULD pick one and boycott them. Even the dimmest bulb in the executive suite can understand poor revenue and trace it back to customer unrest.

Re:We need an appropriate response

Well, since you've admitted your biases, it's only fair that I admit I err on the anti-union side. As to your question:

So what's the real scoop on their pension issue, is it just BS or a consequence of poor management or is there something more to it?

This is a very good question. I wanted to know the answer myself for same reason you listed above: why agree to a pension without being able to monitor its funding status, and relying on future profitability? Why allow other creditors to have seniority to pensioners in collecting debt? (Since a pension is deferred compensation, and workers are senior to bondholders in payment of obligations, pensioners should always be senior, and credit ratings and lenders should always assume they'll be behind in line.) How can you assume no competitors will enter the market?

Unfortunately, it's hard to get reliable information on this, and I try as hard as possible to avoid "well they were just stupid"-type conclusions. I also can't read a financial statement from a corporation. But that's what every source confirms: GM promised an unfunded pension, predicated on future profitability, and the failure of GM was considered impossible. My best guess as to why it happened would be:

-stupidity on the part of unions, who refused to accept the possibility that their employer doesn't dictate its own profits.
-malice on the part of management, who was willing to indulge this fantasy in exchange for valuable union concessions, knowing the union would have no leverage when the obligations came due. Likely arrogance about the possibility of competition.

When I first heard about pension problems affecting profitability, I was confused: aren't they funded in advance from a separate account? Well, they aren't.

Hope that helps.

Nothing to see here

Wow CEO of telecom says "We want more control and more money"

What a surprise.

"You bet they will -- cuz we don't call it cashin' in. We call it 'deregulation.'

I don't call it customer satisfaction. I call it screw'n them over.

Regulation may give more freedom

I hope the fuzzier minded GOP congressmen don't get too confused on this - the "deregulation" banner AT&T are flying under sounds good but consider the financial equity markets: heavily regulated and you won't find an investment banker (paragons of free market capitalism) who'd want it any other way. Certain foundation structures like markets, networks need to be regulated to keep them neutral, transparent & useful. This enables freedom, paradoxical perhaps but pretty obvious.

Re:Regulation may give more freedom

I hope the fuzzier minded GOP congressmen don't get too confused on this - the "deregulation" banner AT&T are flying under sounds good but consider the financial equity markets: heavily regulated and you won't find an investment banker (paragons of free market capitalism) who'd want it any other way. Certain foundation structures like markets, networks need to be regulated to keep them neutral, transparent & useful. This enables freedom, paradoxical perhaps but pretty obvious.

When you are thinking logically, you are exactly right. I totally agree with you. Would a fisherman support the destruction of the fisheries that are his very livelihood? You wouldn't think so but then you see some fishermen go out there and take a huge catch for great profit this season, not seeming to care that his actions this season will leave less for him to harvest next season and the season following. "But of course he has to catch what he can now, his children ain't gonna eat on moonbeams and well-wishes from fish-huggers!" Yes. So the fisherman will destroy his chance of eating tomorrow so he won't starve today. I can see how the mistake is made.

Corporations fall into this same pattern. They have to make the numbers this quarter, THE NUMBERS, YOU DUMB FUCK! COKE IS FOR CLOSERS! etc etc. So that's where you see the fans of deregulation coming in. Have you noticed the dismantling of the rules and regs put in place after the '29 crash to make sure that we wouldn't have another one? With the rules in place, you can have a reasonable profit for years to come. Without the rules you can make a fucking killing...and I guess you'd better hope that goose has a lot of meat on the bones because that's all you'll be eating as the markets struggle to recover.

Product differentiation is BASIC

"net neutrality" has never really existed. Some people get better service 'cuz their ISPs are more competant [less incompetant] about setting up multi-homing, external links and their routers. Often, you've had to pay for this as ISPs compete on service and guarantees with knowledgeable (high traffic) customers.

Now, after a lot of ISP/webhost consolidation, some of the biggies want to reintroduce performance tiering. To differentiate commodity IP transport into various service levels. That's elementary marketing to capture increased revenue from those customers willing to pay more.

I'm far from certain this is a bad thing. Instead of everyone having the same (erratic) latency, some people will pay for better, and the rest will get slightly worse. Frankly, I'm far more concerned about preserving competition between ISPs at all levels, from comsumer last-mile broadband up through the long-haul links.

Re:Product differentiation is BASIC

You are not understanding the issue here. Put simply:

This issue isn't about how much I must pay my ISP for decent net connectivity.

This issue is about how much Google must pay my ISP for decent net connectivity.

Google already pays for their own connectivity. My ISP is already paid by me. My "pipe" is already paid for. Why should my ISP be paid twice? What right does my ISP have to individually charge every conceivable web site that I might access?

Frustrating.

The people running these companies always espouse the advantages of the free market, how essential it is for their survival. And yet, these same jerks will be the first ones crying for government protection the second they start feeling threatened. All this serves to do is erode confidence in the free market system. Inevitably, once people start catching on to what's going on they start calling for excessive government control which can end up doing more harm than good. You'd think these idiots at these companies would be wary of that sort of backlash. Ultimately, it's not the system that's the problem but rather lobbyists, corrupt politicians, and an ignorant population.

That's the ultimate problem here. People don't know this is going on, first of all. I suppose the media doesn't deem it exciting enough to report this. But it wouldn't make a difference if they did because most people likely wouldn't care. Even worse, they probably wouldn't even see anything wrong with what AT&T wants to do.

People have gotten so used to paying for every little thing that they be able to justify AT&T's position. I suspect that's one of the underlying motivations for this trend. Companies are realizing just how tolerant consumers are of this nonsense. I've read that recent studies have found that consumers are growing increasingly comfortable with monthly payments. A company can raise rates on a regular basis and few complain.

People like to whine about gasoline prices, but Americans are still paying far less than most of the rest of the world. And it's still cheaper per gallon that a lot of other things they consume. They're getting screwed worse in other ways and don't even realize it or even care. It's frustrating sometimes to see all this ignorance and to see this disdain for the people on the part of the politicians.

Re:Frustrating.

The people running these companies always espouse the advantages of the free market, how essential it is for their survival. And yet, these same jerks will be the first ones crying for government protection the second they start feeling threatened.

And thus we get to the heart of the matter: they have no motivation but the accumulation of wealth. The religions and philosophies they promote are merely justifications for it, pretenses that will be dropped the moment they threaten the continued accumulation of wealth. They'll sing the praises of the free market up until the point it tries to bite them, then they will club it to death with their diamond-tipped canes.

Devil's Advocate

So a good friend of mine works for the phone company here in my region. His attitude toward net neutrality is the same as the "former"CEO. I can understand their side of the story though.

Let's say that your company spent BILLIONS of dollars rolling out new Fibre across the nation and then you were told that you cannot charge for access to that net?
Deregulation isn't always a bad thing but in this case i think it will destroy many a business that can't or won't pay to play with the big-boys.

Call your reps my fellow Americans, this is still our country!

Re:Devil's Advocate

Let's say that your company spent BILLIONS of dollars rolling out new Fibre across the nation and then you were told that you cannot charge for access to that net?

Do you know what network neutrality is? Why would network neutrality prevent someone for charging for use of their network (which by the way was subsidized by our tax dollars to the tune of billions)? All the network neutrality proposals ever to see any support in congress call for a ban on charging different prices for traffic based upon who is sending the traffic... and that is it. You can still charge for traffic. You can still charge different amounts for different types of traffic. You just can't charge different amounts based upon where the traffic came from. This is to prevent AT&T from asking for money from some company who buys access from AT&T's peer's peer's peer, in exchange for not intentionally slowing down that traffic as it crosses their network. I might mention, in the situation I just mentioned AT&T has already been paif by their peer to carry the traffic, so it is not a question of them not being able to charge for it.

I work with a lot of ISPs and big network providers. Their side of the story is that they want to be able to charge people with lots of money extra for the same service they supply to other people, by using their location as a gateway and by telling their peering router "sure I'm the best way to get that traffic there" and then intentionally slowing the traffic down so their previous claim to the router was a lie. Quite simply, they want to be able to gouge people by ignoring the responsibility of a common carrier. It is a lot easier to do this, than to actually add real value through faster connections or services where they have to be competitive. I mean if you build out a DDoS filter service it might not be as good as Sprint's. They'd have to work hard and take risks. They'd much rather abuse their location in the network in order to collect money for nothing. It is extortion, plain and simple.

Deregulation isn't always a bad thing but in this case i think it will destroy many a business that can't or won't pay to play with the big-boys.

I'm glad you're in favor of net neutrality, but I think your reasons are a bit off. We gave the network operators billions of our tax dollars. That is what prevents little companies from entering the market. We give them special protections from prosecution for the traffic they carry under the ausp