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from: ISP Planet

DSL Prime: AT&T's Net Neutrality Offer is Just Hot Air

AT&T promises to deliver bits without traffic shaping, but the agreement excludes the parts of the network it can control.

by Dave Burstein
of DSL Prime and Future of TV
[January 4, 2007]

"I call them the black ninjas. They work by night and are very, very good."
—FCC Chairman Bill Kennard explaining telco lobbyists

2:00 Friday—An incredible soap opera is playing in Washington, after AT&T published an offer late Thursday night full of great rhetoric and little substance. The $85 billion merger may or may not be approved any minute. Michael Copps yesterday told people he would vote for the deal and look for it today, but neither Copps nor Adelstein came to the office. They can do by e-mail, however. It's unlikely Copps, Adelstein and their staffers will read any of the comments before they vote, and the latest rumor is they voted last night and are just holding things to bury the story late Friday. So this is probably much ado about nothing, while maybe all the political pressure will get AT&T to behave after all.

Meanwhile I'm reporting the story based on the best public information, including the loophole D.C. folks tell me AT&T will not dare use. AT&T wants the deal, and if Copps and Adelstein stood firm would have given in. The market moves $5 billion or $6 billion on merger rumors—the total of all these concessions is less than a tenth of that. Whitacre would be a fool not to agree if pressed, and he's no fool. Here's the story, then the less political part of DSL Prime. I've worked all night, probably tilting at windmills, so forgive any rough edges please.

AT&T/BellSouth—In Progress with Results To Come
"Jim Cicconi and Bob Quinn are the best lobbyists in Washington," President of SBC Bill Daley lamented after they beat him a while back. They now work for AT&T, and have proven their brilliance by convincing most of D.C. they accepted network neutrality to get the BellSouth merger approved, while burying on page 10 a sentence that would allow AT&T to tie things up in court forever if Kevin Martin isn't strong.

AT&T offer on Net Neutrality sounds good, and might be a model to countries like Japan that are considering Net Neutrality rules. AT&T agreed "not to provide … any service that privileges, degrades or prioritizes any packet transmitted over AT&T/BellSouth's wireline broadband Internet access service based on its source, ownership or destination."

A seemingly innocuous later sentence effectively makes that almost meaningless. "This commitment also does not apply to AT&T/BellSouth's Internet Protocol television (IPTV) service." AT&T has always intended to use what they are calling their "IPTV network" for the priority customers, and hasn't even put the QoS equipment in place on the 1998 "wireline broadband Internet access service." The entire set of "concessions" are not enough to change Merrill Lynch's "immaterial" judgment, unless the rhetoric about Net Neutrality becomes an important precedent. So let's fight for that.

Net Neutrality hero David Isenberg highlights: " We've come a long way, baby! Our lobbying helped convince FCC Commissioner McDowell to honor his ethics commitment and remain on the sidelines for the AT&T BellSouth vote. Then we got AT&T's Ed Whitacre to change his tune from, 'I'm not even sure what Net Neutrality means,'to AT&T/BellSouth will conduct business in a manner that comports with the principles set forth in the Commission's Policy Statement,'"

A moment is at hand where the Internet is winning more. Xavier Niel in France knows that, so do the Verizon fiber builders and the BT next gen network. (Policy, at end)