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."

We need an appropriate response

[Anonymous Coward]

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:Subject

[Anonymous Coward]

technically less than half did anything at all.

Regulation may give more freedom

[cyberianpan]

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.

Product differentiation is BASIC

[redelm]

"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.

Ed's Mission Accomplished

[Anonymous Coward]

Some 20 years ago, I had lunch with Ed. Sat right next to him. I was a snot-nosed new hire and he was pumping me full of "Bell Juice".

Anyway, he told me his biggest dream was to reunite AT&T. I thought "yeah, right", but looking back, it is clear that he was going to do anything he could to make his dream a reality. He did it.

Not that I think AT&T remerging was a good idea, but I admire his tenacity.

That said, I wish AT&T was broken up again. It's really annoying when I'm having DSL problems, which AT&T Internet Services can't seem to fix, so they blame the phone company (Also AT&T) and my telephone (Again, carrying the AT&T brand label). When I point out to the manager that they're all AT&T, and why can't they get together and fix the problem, I was told "big companies don't work that way". AAAARRRGGGHHH!!!!!

Easy Fix

[daeg]

You want access to public easements to run your fiber? You play by common carrier rules. The public owns that land and are granting you temporary, paid rights to use it and reserve the right to revoke it at any time, including seizing ownership of anything on that land. You lose temporary rights when you start serving yourself instead of serving the public.

If you don't like the rules, don't play them. Other companies will step up where you fail and provide the service the public demands and deserves.

Re:What's all the fuss?

[jollyreaper]

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?

[ducomputergeek]

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:Welcome to the future.

[cybermage]

Actually, What you can expect is not higher latency, but significant packet loss. You'll get clean, packet-loss free connectivity to people paying the extortion money and everything else will be relegated to congestion hell.

Re:Devil's Advocate

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

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 auspice that they are impartial, common carriers, not responsible for what crosses their network. Both of these were done for the common good. If they want to be mercenary and be unregulated let them, right after they pay the money back and after we start prosecuting them for transporting child pornography and contributing to copyright infringement. If they want to eb treated like any other company we should oblige them, but if they want to be supported and protected by special laws, we should be getting something back for the american people.

Non-neutral internet has already been tried

[OutSourcingIsTreason]

It's called AOL, and people voted against it with their dollars.

Re:stay on your own side of the pond

[hedwards]

I seriously doubt that. Most of the world does nothing, and then whines when we ultimately do what they wanted to do in the first place. There were legitimate reasons for going to Iraq. As a Canadian I spoke with just prior to the war beginning said, Saddam and his family are no good. His own son enjoyed feeding people to a wood chipper feet first and twisting mens arms off.

The reasons for us going to war weren't correct, but you can be sure that oil had very little to do with it. Anytime there is a war in a major oil producing country the price of oil spikes. This really does not benefit us at all. How it is that people assume that it is a matter of oil, when the oil producing nations are the ones which end up with windfall profits is beyond me.

And at any rate, the Australians and British were just involved in this as we were, but yet we are the ones that take all of the heat for it. I don't see the rest of the world taking on Darfur, eventually when we have the man power, we will probably be the ones that have to go in and clean up that mess.

When we send troops we get yelled at for being heavy handed, when we just want to send money we get yelled at for trying to buy our way out of harms way. I don't think that people at this point here really believe that this is anything other than anti-Americanism. If a different country were doing it I would be shocked if people took this sort of a tone over it. Mostly because as the BBC pointed out a while back, the Chinese have anti-satellite weapons, the Russians have a huge nuclear arsenal, and the British have a program of spying on their own citizens that puts anything we could do to shame; but it is clearly us bad Americans that are the worst in the free world.