AT&T Crying Uncle Is Kinda Sorta A Milestone

The biggest merger in telecommunications history was approved quietly at the end of the news day Thursday just before the world stopped caring for a few days. Gerald Ford and James Brown are dead, a new year is upon us, and AT&T was forced to admit there is such a thing as Network Neutrality. That the Federal Communications Commission required concessions on the concept in order for AT&T to merge with Bell South is a milestone, even if the stone is made of lip service, is true enough at this point for Net Neutrality supporters given that for the past year the telecommunications industry and the federal government have fought tooth and nail against a so-called myth (or "I don't know what that is but I'm against it. They were so against it they spent millions trying to ensure that they didn't have to admit anything. But here they are, at the end of a yearlong headlock at least crying uncle, a little, well just enough to end the torture for now. Though AT&T's concessions are hardly binding, as FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin and Commissioner Deborah Taylor pointed out later, the telecom giant's acknowledgment that Net Neutrality is more than fairy tale is enough to spur pages of explanations for what it all means. The focus has been on this signed confession, bulldogged into the uproar comes when Chairman Martin and Commissioner Taylor (both Republican and opposed to Net Neutrality) release a statement saying AT&T is under no real obligation to follow it's own concessions, which is at the same time frustrating for proponents and a boon for the cause of legislation. From Martin and Taylor's