Wednesday, April 06, 2016

AT&T miscasts telecom infrastructure as competitive market requiring level playing field

AT&T GigaPower Ready to RSVP | Light Reading: AT&T has been known for taking action, politically and in the courts, to fight municipalities that want to build and operate their own networks, but Harrison insisted her company does not oppose government-owned networks. "We only want to have a level playing field for all competitors, so everyone works by the same rules and regulations," she said. That means a municipality can't favor its own network when it comes to using public rights of way or issuing permits in a more timely fashion.

Translated, that means we (AT&T) want to control the rules on our terms, not the public's. That's an overreach on AT&T's part. The government and the private sector are not equal partners and cannot be because unlike a private company, the government is obligated to act in the public interest. If the government wants to provide telecommunications as a common carrier utility consistent with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission's Open Internet rules (and accordingly serve all properties unlike AT&T's rampant redlining and cherry picking), it can do so regardless of what AT&T or any other legacy incumbent desires.

Finally, AT&T as a monopoly market player knows better than to cast telecommunications infrastructure as a competitive market of many sellers where a level playing field is necessary to ensure fair competition. It is not.

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