AT&T Versus The Future

If consumers and competition win, there will eventually be no dividing line between your phones (mobile and home line), your computer, your Internet access, and your TV. Ideally, it all merges into one, consumers have a choice of providers of all those services, and the providers do nothing but provide access. You can attach whatever you like that doesn’t harm the network. You can download anything legal. You can use whichever service available.
terms of service to forbid peer-to-peer downloading and “customer initiated redirection of television or other video or audio signals via any technology from a fixed location to a mobile device.”

All that customer euphoria about Skype on iPhone? Don’t get used to it. AT&T plans to block access to VoiP as well. And of course they would. Skype’s an obvious competitor, as is any service delivering TV in the era of AT&T’s U-Verse.

AT&T is doing all it can to avoid becoming a system of dumb pipes, which is what consumers really want. Instead, they want things to remain in the golden age of mobile, where minutes are costly, text messages are marked up 7000 percent, users are locked into contracts, and nobody has the faintest chance of competing with them.

In a letter to the FCC, the new chairman of which was appointed by net neutrality supporter President Obama,
Telcos and cable companies argue it’s all about network management. TimeWarner is