Taking a HARD look at the Business of Politics

The AT&T/BellSouth Merger, along with the proposed Notice of Inquiry on Net Neutrality is OFF the agenda for the Friday FCC Meeting. According to Harold Feld at Wet Machine this most likely indicates that Adelstein and Copps have put Martin on notice that they will not accept a NOI as a substitute for merger conditions. This means that Martin can’t have his easy majority since with Net Neutrality as part of the merger mix, McDowell, the third Republican, will remain recused. This also means that if the NOI is off the agenda permanently then the Republicans can’t use this NOI end run to shelve Net Neutrality as an issue until a problem actually crops up.

Speculation has it that wireless spectrum is the current holdup with the Merger, and the reason for the Merger’s removal from the agenda. If the merger were to go through without conditions AT&T would control a huge block of wireless spectrum since Cingular is part of the deal and Cingular just won the auction bid on additional spectrum. There are many who are opposing this, including Sprint/Nextel and Clearwire.

Though it’s vaguely possible that the details could get hammered out in time for tomorrow’s meeting, it’s highly unlikely at this time.

Technorati Tags: FCC, AT&T/BellSouth Merger, Net Neutrality, Telecomms

BitchSlapped on 11/2/06, 3:04 PM
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