New AT&T Same As The Old AT&T

AT&T chief Ed Whitacre is out, retired, ready to sit back and enjoy his golden (and I mean golden) years. As of yesterday, he's replaced by SBC front-man Randall Stephenson, a 25-year company man, and a man after Whitacre's own heart.

UPDATE and CORRECTION:

The quote attributed to Ed Whitacre was intended as a parody, but it was not immediately clear at the original source that it was a satirical take on the issue. Our apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Go ahead and change all the indefinite articles in the preceding sentences to "the." In his new position, Stephenson is officially incarnated as the Man, in all his inglorious, deep-pocketed, well-connected fury.

He looks mild-mannered enough, a real Company Joe, polished, conservative, well-coifed. But if you thought a younger, more with-it CEO was a remedy to the heavy-handedness with which the telecom giant handles its bidness, think again.

And judging from
But wait, you say, because you've been following this for a while now and you're an astute observer with BS detectors set to highest sensitivity. Didn't AT&T agree to Net Neutrality principles late last year in order to get their merger with Bell South approved?

Yeah, they sort of did, but that was akin to telling a cop you'll slow down if he just gives you a warning. The agreement to adhere to Net Neutrality principles had
But again, there's no mention of how Google pays for the bandwidth they use already, or of how a tiered Internet, - where not just Web services providers, but also content providers and access subscribers pay - will create tollbooths at every turn…just like cable, just like mobile phones with the