Background: Earlier today, AT&T chief lobbyist
Jim Cicconi complained on his company’s blog about the treatment the company’s
takeover of T-Mobile received at the FCC. That post is here. http://attpublicpolicy.com/wireless/att-response-to-fcc-staff-report/
The following is attributed to Harold Feld, legal director of
Public Knowledge:
“The FCC staff report explains in
meticulous detail why AT&T’s claims on every issue were simply not
credible. The staff went into
exhaustive analysis of AT&T’s economic models, engineering plans, financial
data and public statements to come up with its conclusion that the takeover is
not in the public interest.
“Indeed, as staff repeatedly noted in
their analysis, AT&T’s claims, repeated again in its blog post, were
contradicted by AT&T’s own internal documents. For AT&T to say that it did not receive a fair hearing
before the Federal Communications Commission is ludicrous. The Commission staff went out of its
way to give AT&T every opportunity to make its case before concluding that
the company had not done so. And,
as we have said, the Commission was fully within its rights and authority to
release the staff report.
“It is time for AT&T to move
on.”
Public Knowledge is a Washington D.C.- based public interest group
working to defend consumer rights in the emerging digital culture. More information is available at http://www.publicknowledge.org