It’s over. It’s done.
The AT&T-BellSouth merger is a done deal.
To get the deal done, AT&T offered some concessions on network neutrality. But some smart people, including Dave Burstein, consider this language a dodge.
Essentially AT&T agreed to apply network neutrality to its main network for at least 30 months, but did not extend that promise to its IP TV network. The key to AT&T has always been getting into TV, and a promise to take on all TV comers would violate the principles companies like Comcast long established, which is that they control the vertical, the horizontal, and the channel offerings, so they collect from the operators and the free market doesn’t work.
Dave believes AT&T will simply move everything to its IPTV network, essentially defining everything as IPTV, and then start trying to charge Web sites blackmail for access to its backbone, not to mention "its" customers (which Ed Whitacre insists it owns).
Well, maybe.
What this battle has revealed is the incredible distrust that
run-of-the-mill consumers have to the phone company, on a par with
their feelings for their cable operators and cell phone operators
(notice a pattern).
This distrust is well-placed. The Bells and cable operators are not
interested in a free market. They are not really interested in the
Internet as it exists, but the Internet they can control.
So what can consumers do now?
I’ll tell you what I’m doing. I’m getting my phone line turned off. For
now I’ll switch it to my cell phone. It will mean the money goes to the
same place, but for now that can’t be helped. And maybe, later, I’ll
move it again, to my cable company.
That’s $80/month which BellSouth and MCI were getting that they won’t
be getting, as opposed to a few dollars a month for a new cell line.
And I keep my phone number.
That’s what this little ewok is doing. You can probably do the same. Detach yourself from AT&T in every way you can.
But I’m not giving up on the larger effort. And neither should you. AT&T demands careful
watching. We need to make a case, over the next two years, that this
company is doing what we say they’re doing — destroying the U.S. lead
in Internet technology for its own greed.
And then, after we have established the case, we make it to the new Administration in Washington, and get this giant broken-up.
What the Internet needs, demands, and will get is a free market. A free
market for access, a free market for content, a free market for users
and providers both, at every level.
This is a compelling political demand, a demand that policymakers will
respond to, once they’re no longer in the pocket of big business.
Regardless which party wins in 2008, I expect that to be the case in 2009.
So we have our work cut out for us. But it’s good work, and it’s a job
we can do. AT&T has promised not to violate net neutrality on its
backbone, and for its consumer Internet services, until mid-2009 at the
earliest.
Let’s get to work.
The downsides of dropping your land line in favor of your cell phone are many.
(1) If your home has poor cell reception, you might not be able to get 911 in an emergency, or depending on your carrier, may not connect to local 911 in an emergency.
(2) POTS still delivers the best, most consistent voice quality. When I call someone on business, I make sure it’s from a land line and preferably to a land line. Using a cell to save money at the cost of tinny conversation looks cheap. If someone uses a cell phone for long distance, I call them back on a land line.
(3) In an extended emergency (earthquake, hurricane, etc.), the phone network has its own power, so you’re more likely to have access to service with your landline and a cheap, corded phone than with a cell phone that needs recharging.
But hey, gotta make sacrifices to stick it to the man!
For Brad:
(1) Obviously. If someone goes cell only when they have insufficient coverage at home what more can one say to them?
(2) This is only true of POTS-to-POTS. Once you start throwing other things like mobile switching centers, PBX, and VoIP into the equation it gets very complicated. Then there is the quality of actual phone at either end of the converstion. I have been on many landline to landline calls that sounded terrible. I have been on many cell-to-X calls that sounded MOS 5 to me.
(3) Power over the phone line is all well and good until that line is severed or the CO from which the power is coming goes down. In an extended emergency (see Katrina) you are pretty much screwed and are best served by leaving the area. In a short term emergency, mobile networks often outperform landline networks — likely due to the much greater annual CapEx spent on maintaining/improving them.
True Jesse, but you have to admit, if those hikers on Mt Hood had a land line, they probably would have been found alive ;-).
Sure. Even if there was no dialtone they could have just followed the cable back to civilization.