AT&T Loves Competition (Or At Least Their Version Of It)
from the do-as-i-say-not-as-i-do dept
AT&T has paid a UC-Berkeley professor to write a paper which says that cable-TV prices would drop if more competition were introduced to the California market — competition from, say, a telco like AT&T. It’s kind of amusing to watch AT&T act like a bastion of competition and a great friend of the consumer in the TV space, while on the telephone and broadband side, they do their best to resist competition and abuse their monopoly (or duopoly) power. If AT&T is so concerned about competition and consumer prices, why not lease out capacity wholesale on their networks and let third-party providers offer consumers services? They’re happy to do that in the more competitive wireless market. AT&T and Verizon are lobbying to get state cable franchising laws changed to make it easier for them to get into the market. Perhaps if their plans supported competition in a meaningful way, rather than just extending the duopoly to cable TV, they’d have an easier time — not that they really have a problem getting what they want from government.
Comments on “AT&T Loves Competition (Or At Least Their Version Of It)”
Corporations are going to do whats in their best interest. Why is this news?
What is ever news? Another election, new season of American Idol, the /weather/, somebody or some people were killed in this way or that? That’s what gets reported on the “news” nowadays.
But Techdirt is an editorial site, and nothing that happens has never happened before.
The point of this article is that while nobody can blame a company or for acting in its best interest, there are certain things that would be in a comapny’s best interest that almost all companies always fail to see, such as fostering true competition and innovation. Instead they’d rather do what amounts to screwing the customers, and the government is only too happy to help.
ATT
Or flipping out and doing everything possible to prevent cities from doing Urban wide WiFi. Unless of course they can legislate a cut.
At least get the facts straight...
Your first sentence states “AT&T has paid a UC-Berkeley professor to write a paper which says that cable-TV prices would drop if more competition were introduced to the California market — competition from, say, a telco like AT&T.” Nice lead, but incorrect. I am that professor, I was paid by AT&T to do the research, BUT it was the FCC and the GAO that documented the price reductions from competition. I then calculated how much (in dollars) cable subscribers in California would save if they could see similar price reductions. Links to the report and the calculations are at:
http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~bigyale/cable/
Ha ha ha
Where’s your response to that Carlo?
You didn’t expect the professor to be reading your crappy little blog did you?
Re: Ha ha ha
Hmm. What’s so funny about it? If you read the prof’s comments, Carlo’s exactly right. They DID pay him, didn’t they?
Carlo and I discussed this, and we didn’t think a response was necessary, as he basically admits to exactly what Carlo wrote.
Anyway, if you really believe we’re a crappy little blog, why should you care? And… I won’t even bother to reveal where your IP address says you’re coming from… but it’s fairly revealing about why you would say such a thing….
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