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posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday July 08 2015, @11:57PM   Printer-friendly
from the too-big-to-fail dept.

AT&T is promising to offer cheaper Internet service to poor people if it's allowed to buy DirecTV. This is similar to a promise that helped Comcast gain government approval of its 2011 acquisition of NBCUniversal.

Qualifying residents in areas where AT&T's top speeds are below 5 Mbps (that's not a typo) will be offered DSL service of "up to 1.5 Mbps, where available" for $10 a month, AT&T said in a filing with the Federal Communications Commission last week. It'll be $5 a month for the first year before rising to $10 for the next three years. AT&T is proposing a four-year commitment in total.

In areas where AT&T's top speeds are higher, the company said it "will offer a broadband wireline DSL service at speeds up to 5 Mbps to households in AT&T's wireline footprint for $10 per month for the first 12 months of service (rising to $20 per month for the remainder of the term of the commitment)."

http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/07/att-will-give-poor-people-1-5mbps-dsl-for-10-if-us-allows-directv-merger/


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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by hash14 on Thursday July 09 2015, @12:55AM

    by hash14 (1102) on Thursday July 09 2015, @12:55AM (#206702)

    All ISPs do this.

    Take Verizon for example: not building out in New Jersey or Pennsylvania (they were happy to take the money and then bribe regulators into not investigating them for unfulfilled promises).

    They're doing the same thing in NYC. In this case, they're lagging behind on their fiber optic deployment - they've only deployed to about 50% of the city, but they're claiming to have done 100% because they argue that actually wiring the apartments they're supposed to serve shouldn't be counted as part of the final roll-out (wtf seriously???). And then they make up some bullshit excuse for this, like landlords not cooperating with allowing them to install (but this is because Verizon would force them to consent to exclusivity agreements which their contract with NYC _explicitly banned_ - yes they are flouting the rules this openly).

    Verizon are taking quite a lot of heat in NYC though: in a city with large banks and other big money flowing around, it takes bigger bribes to make the regulators go away. Google these stories - you'll find all sorts of coverage on Ars Technica.

    Or Comcast, when it came to light that they had ignored so many promises from their NBC merger that the extra attention from their TWC acquisition almost got them into a further investigation! I posted about this on a similar story a short while ago: https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=7819&cid=193235#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]

    Also, the post I referenced above was also on promises that AT&T was making: "We will only obey net neutrality if you approve our merger."

    They really do the best job of highlighting how backward things are. ISPs should be on _unconditional_ good behaviour _all the time_ of the time and then use that good will to garner support for regulatory approvals on these sorts of deals.

    Instead, we have the opposite: ISPs saying that we'll only be on good behaviour if you give us what we want. I would be mortified to act this childishly. Very literally, it reminds me of a three-year-old bargaining with his parents, "I'll take a bath if you let me have pastries first!"

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  • (Score: 2) by krishnoid on Thursday July 09 2015, @02:00AM

    by krishnoid (1156) on Thursday July 09 2015, @02:00AM (#206734)

    Verizon are taking quite a lot of heat in NYC though: in a city with large banks and other big money flowing around, it takes bigger bribes to make the regulators go away. Google these stories - you'll find all sorts of coverage on Ars Technica.

    So, good -- the system works.

  • (Score: 2) by kaganar on Thursday July 09 2015, @03:11AM

    by kaganar (605) on Thursday July 09 2015, @03:11AM (#206752)
    Whoa now, let's be careful when using the term "ISP". AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, DirecTV -- these are not ISPs, these are much much larger than dedicated ISPs. Back when the mere mortal had a phone line to connect to the internet, ISPs were those people just beyond the last mile that competed for your business -- there were literally hundreds of them in the larger cities. Not with today's duopoly in most regions. What I want to know is... where'd all the apparent choices for DSL ISPs go? It seems like a lot of DSL ISPs still exist, but it's quite hard to find out how to use them instead of, say, AT&T's terribleness.
    • (Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday July 09 2015, @05:09AM

      by frojack (1554) on Thursday July 09 2015, @05:09AM (#206801) Journal

      where'd all the apparent choices for DSL ISPs go?

      There never really were any DSL choices beyond your local phone company.

      When people were on dial-up, they could dial into any ISP they wanted. There could be a dozen in a large city.
      But DSL requires short runs of dedicated lines - to the nearest central office or local office where it could jump to fiber or whatever. It was very range limited.

      --
      No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.