Kevin Martin Gives Birthday Present To Big Telcos

from the happy-birthday-to-you-all dept

Wed, Dec 14th 2005 4:34pm — Mike Masnick

Today was apparently FCC chairman Kevin Martin's birthday -- and he celebrated it by having a bunch of big telco execs sing him "Happy Birthday" (you wonder, did they get the rights first?). Then, to return the favor, he gave them all a few birthday presents. First, he said that taxing VoIP systems was a good idea -- something his predecessor was vehemently against, but which the big telcos all endorse, because they're unable to compete as well against VoIP systems. So, rather than looking for ways to actually compete, they want VoIP providers to have to deal with additional taxes as well. Of course, as the article notes, these taxes will go towards the Universal Service Fund -- which has faced numerous mismanagement and fraud charges. Then, to make the telcos even happier, he claimed he sees no reason to push for network neutrality rules, because he doesn't see any evidence that there's a problem. This comes just shortly after both BellSouth and ~~SBC~~ AT&T made it clear that they're looking to give preferential treatment to their own services, while potentially looking to charge any other service provider. It would seem that the small independent telcos and broadband providers should maybe swing by Martin's office to sing him some tunes as well.

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ZOMG CENSORED, 14 Dec 2005 @ 5:28pm

Upsidedown World?
I thought you were supposed to GET gifts on your birthday, not give away the house (including the infamous 'kitchen sink') to people who don't have a use for said metaphorical house... This makes me sad.
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Jeremiah, 15 Dec 2005 @ 8:03am

AT&G
This may be why Google has been buying all that dark fiber. They may have peered into thier magic 8-Ball and decided it was less expensive in the long run to build thier own infrastructure.

Can you imagine what AOL would look like today had they built their own infrastructure instead of building on the telcos'?
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Bernie, 15 Dec 2005 @ 8:38am

FCC and Telcos
1984 saw the breakup of the AT&T monopoly -- are we going backwards? Again?
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- Robert Raplee, 2 Oct 2007 @ 7:40pm
  
  Re: FCC and Telcos
  It would seem so.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Dec 2005 @ 10:07am

No Subject Given
bababooey
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flienty, 27 Mar 2006 @ 5:57am

happy birthday
happy birthday to flienty
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