Lauren Weinstein on Nostr: I've written about this widely over the years, and won't try repeat myself here now, ...

I've written about this widely over the years, and won't try repeat myself here now, other than to say the "reconstituted" AT&T post-breakup is far more dangerous then the original one, since it has worked diligently to absolve itself of all public safety and service requirements, billing regulation, and much more. And they still absolutely control their original service areas in many ways. If you want fiber in an AT&T area and they don't want to build it in your neighborhood or even give you access if it passes your location, you're out of luck. They have just been accused of bribing officials in Illinois to eliminate carrier of last resort requirements, and the CPUC here in California has just (preliminarily by the administrative judge, actual commission vote is next month) issued a scathing denial of their attempt to eliminate those requirements here, citing numerous misrepresentations on AT&T's part. They have lobbied endlessly to block municipal broadband and true competition and physical plant sharing that is successful in much of the rest of the world, while working to force users onto unreliable wireless systems. It's as if the worst of AT&T from Ma Bell days had been unleashed and multiplied.

In fact, the Net could have come without AT&T being broken up, all that was required was permitting realistic competition. AT&T rigged the game the way the breakup was instituted, so that they could maintain control. So the end result was worse, especially for the most vulnerable people in their service areas whom AT&T now wants to cut off completely from even basic phone services.