AT&T’s New Tune on Net Neutrality

Before their reincarnation as AT&T the phone company — following their merger with SBC — they were AT&T, the long distance company. (You may remember their never-ending ad campaign, 1-800-CALL-ATT.) The difference between the new AT&T and the old one is the latter didn’t control any wires — they just used them. This distinction is at the center of the debate over Net Neutrality - the idea that those who own the wires cannot block or discriminate against the content flowing over the network.

As a long distance provider, AT&T relied on Net Neutrality rules to ensure access to the customers at the end of these wires. This changed after the company merged with SBC, and then BellSouth, making it the largest Internet service provider in the country. (This chart may help you make sense of this merger craze.) Once it gained power over customer’s Internet connections, AT&T turned into an ardent Net Neutrality opponent.

A Telco’s Change of Heart

On May 28, 2004, AT&T lawyers said:

“The Internet has flourished to date because of openness. Network owners do not tell subscribers which Web sites they can visit or which applications they can run over their Internet connections. …. The commission can directly prevent anticompetitive use of broadband transport facilities and foster unimpeded access to IP applications with modest technology neutral conduct regulation that merely prohibits broadband carriers from discriminating against unaffiliated IP applications an content.”

But here’s AT&T on June 15, 2007:

“There is no need to subject the Internet to a scheme of ‘nondiscrimination’ rules to protect anyone against anticompetitive conduct.”

And: “There is no potential upside to Net Neutrality regulation.”

And finally: “These ‘blocking’ concerns are a sham.”

AT&T Caught Blocking?

Peer-to-peer video distributer Vuze Inc, recently collected information that raises the question of whether AT&T customers were being provided a full and unfettered connection to the Web.

Given the lack of candid disclosure from Internet providers like AT&T, Vuze’s report attempts to shed much-needed light on whether these companies are providing customers with an open Internet experience.

If only AT&T would remember the way they used to be. It’s time they stopped fighting against the wishes of their own customers and started fighting for them.