July 14, 2006

The USF - $50 Billion later

Daniel Berninger, Sr. analyst for Tier1 Research wrote an open letter to the commerce committees asking them to figure out what results the $50 billion collected for USF over the last 20 years achieved. Read his letter here on Pulver.
Posted by wbia at 20:01:10 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Mergers face new scrutiny

AT&T and Verizon will make arguments today in federal court that they hope will convince Judge Emmet G. Sullivan to approve what was once considered a routine consent decree as part of the AT&T-SBC and Verizon-MCI mergers.

Sullivan last Friday surprised many by raising concerns that the consent decrees negotiated by the U.S. Department of Justice with the two telecom giants may not go far enough to protect the public interest by preserving competition.

The DoJ had approved the two mergers based on agreements with both parties that some fiber optic facilities would be divested to ensure competition. The facilities in question involved instances in which either AT&T or MCI operated the only competitive fiber optic cables into a building in SBC or Verizon territory, respectively.

See Telephonyonline for more on this article.

Posted by wbia at 00:22:36 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |