The state of California is in receipt of a letter from AT&T objecting to a state workshop on the AT&T/T-Mobile merger that included 70 minutes for a panel of academic experts to share their views of one of the state’s largest wireless mergers in years.

J. David Tate, AT&T’s general attorney and associate general counsel, sent the letter in response to news California regulators would open the workshop to a presentation from academics about the impact the merger would have on California consumers, ranging from competition to roaming access to spectrum issues.

Tate called that inappropriate and asked the California Public Utilities Commission to ban their testimony:

“AT&T is raising objections to the panel because having a panel of ‘academic experts’ present at this workshop will pose significant risk of tainting the record with potentially uninformed and biased opinions. These opinions do not constitute the facts upon which the transaction should be reviewed.

“[…] Allowing academicians with unknown expertise in the wireless telecom industry the opportunity to place on the record their personal opinions regarding AT&T’s planned purchase of T-Mobile USA is procedurally improper, unfairly prejudicial to the parties, and contrary to due process principles.”

Instead of allowing those outside of the industry to present their views on the merger, AT&T suggested the best solution would be to allot the 70 minutes originally given to the academics to AT&T (and the three remaining panels AT&T does not object to) instead.

Is this a T-Mobile priority coverage zone?

One of the “benefits” AT&T’s lobbying team claims will come with a merger between AT&T and T-Mobile is improved wireless service for rural America.

But an investigation into T-Mobile’s urban-focused coverage, and AT&T’s own recent rural past prove those claimed benefits simply don’t make any sense.

Although rural and small town America is increasingly aware of AT&T, that comes mostly from the company’s recent acquisitions, not from mass expansion projects to blanket rural America with AT&T iPhones.  AT&T has been on a shopping spree for smaller regional wireless carriers for the last five years, picking up resources through acquisition, not from independent investment.  But a buyout of T-Mobile will bring no new assets for AT&T’s presence in rural America.  It will simply reduce competition in larger communities the same way AT&T cut out competitors in rural markets.

Just ask customers of Dobson Cellular.  In 2007, AT&T bought the rural provider, doing business as Cellular One, for $2.8 billion dollars and converted customers to AT&T.  Dobson was the largest cell phone company around in Alaska and rural Michigan.  In fact, the company provided roaming capability to customers of AT&T and T-Mobile who ventured into the rural areas Dobson specialized in serving.

After the conversion, did service improve for the newly acquired AT&T customers?

“No way,” says ex-Cellular One customer Jim Duncan who lives in a former Dobson service area in Michigan. “AT&T ruined cell phone service when they got here with dropped calls and phantom busy signals, turning a friendly local-focused company into one where you are just an account number reaching some national call center.”

Acquired by AT&T in 2007

Duncan says AT&T never cared one bit about rural Michigan before buying Dobson, and in his view, still doesn’t.

“Smaller markets are an afterthought for AT&T and T-Mobile has zero impact (and customers) in my area, so I have no idea what great improvements a merger will bring to our part of Michigan that neither company paid much attention to,” Duncan says.

That same year, AT&T also grabbed spectrum worth $2.5 billion with its acquisition of Aloha Partners, which spent time at FCC auctions buying up 700Mhz spectrum and then eventually reselling it at a profit to wireless carriers.  AT&T didn’t just buy some of Aloha’s spectrum, it acquired the whole partnership.

Acquired by AT&T in 2008.

In April 2008, Edge Wireless customers in southern Oregon, northern California, southeastern Idaho and Jackson, Wyoming discovered they were well on their way to becoming AT&T customers, too.  AT&T acquired Edge and rebranded it AT&T. That hardly represents investment and dedicated expansion into rural Rocky Mountain states — AT&T simply bought up another company that did.

Also in 2008, AT&T snapped up Centennial Communications, a considerable-sized regional player in the central United States.  Centennial delivered service in less urban areas in Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan in the north, and Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi in the south.  One million customers, Centennial’s spectrum and name all became part of AT&T.  Did service improve for Centennial customers with that merger?

“Overall, it stayed the same when it was Centennial and switched to AT&T,” says our reader Kevin, who now lives in Ft. Wayne, Ind.  “We did get access to the iPhone, but along with it came AT&T’s infamous dropped calls and lousy customer service.”

Acquired by AT&T in late 2008.

Kevin switched to Verizon Wireless earlier this year.

“If I was the FCC, I wouldn’t approve this merger because it promises nothing for rural America or anyone else,” says Kevin. “AT&T had a presence in Indiana before they bought Centennial, so all the deal did was reduce competition in this state.”

Centennial’s service areas were not exactly among T-Mobile’s priority coverage areas, either.

Acquired by AT&T in 2011?

“T-Who?,” Kevin asks.  “We’re aware of them now, but I don’t know anyone who has service with them.”

The real unanswered question is what AT&T is doing with all of the rural spectrum it already owns, controls, or has acquired.  How will an acquisition of an urban-focused carrier help deliver improved service in the rural markets both companies have traditionally ignored?

Answer: It won’t.

[flv width=”480″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WANE Ft Wayne Centennial Joins ATT 10-09 and 02-10.flv[/flv]

WANE-TV in Ft. Wayne, Ind., covered the merger of Centennial and AT&T back in 2009 and early 2010.  Fort Wayne was the home of a major regional office for Centennial.  (4 minutes)

The Competition Bureau has fined Bell Canada $10 million for what it calls the phone company’s misleading pricing for its wireless, broadband, phone, and satellite TV services.  The agency accused Bell of advertising one price for service, but charged customers considerably more after hidden fees were tacked on.  That made it impossible for any customer to actually purchase Bell’s services at their advertised prices.

The fine, the maximum amount that can be levied, was designed to send a message, according to Commissioner Melanie Aitken.

“When a price is offered to consumers, it must be accurate,” Aitken said. “Including a fine-print disclaimer is no license to advertise prices that are not available.”

Since December 2007, Bell routinely advertised product bundles that it claimed were priced at less than $70 a month, but after the hidden fees were calculated, Canadian consumers routinely paid north of $80.

Aitken

Aitken took issue with rental fees for equipment, term contract escape penalties, mandatory “add-ons” that were not included in the advertised price, and hidden “junk fees” designed to look like government-mandated taxes.  They all routinely add at least $10 to most telecommunications bills, even before actual government fees are calculated.

Bell protested the Bureau’s findings, but quickly agreed to pay the fine, modify its advertising, and cover the $100,000 estimated cost of the agency’s investigation.

The Competition Bureau has become a thorn in the side of many major corporate entities in Canada after winning new powers in 2009 to protect consumer interests.  The agency is currently pursuing a $10 million fine against Rogers Communications for “hit piece” advertising misleading consumers about Rogers’ wireless rivals — especially Wind Mobile.

But Rogers is not going quietly as Bell has done, vowing to drag the matter through the courts to void any fines or penalties.

Aitken promises she isn’t necessarily done with telecommunications companies, suggesting any company burying extra costs in the fine print, or subjecting customers to penalty fees for canceling service might be on notice.

Telecommunications companies in Canada have traditionally opposed government agencies that champion consumer protections.  Most notably, Bell, Rogers, and Quebecor Media have all attacked the Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services, an independent agency that monitors and assists consumers with issues related to phone and cable companies.  Bell wanted the organization abolished, while Rogers and Quebecor sought to see participation in it made voluntary.

Unfortunately, consumers won’t share in the $10 million fine from Bell.  Those funds will be collected and kept by the Canadian government.

[flv width=”640″ height=”388″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/CBC Bell fined 10M over ads 6-28-11.flv[/flv]

CBC covers Bell’s $10 million dollar fine for advertising one price for service, but sending a much higher bill with tacked on hidden fees and surcharges.  (2 minutes)

Frontier's Facts - Frontier's new website to counter Comcast's claims about FiOS. (click to enlarge)

Frontier Communications has fired back at Comcast after the Fort Wayne, Indiana cable company erected billboards telling residents Frontier was pulling the plug on its acquired FiOS fiber optic network.

On Wednesday, Frontier purchased a full-page ad in The Journal Gazette headlined, “Comcast Doesn’t Let the Facts Get in the Way of a Good Story! Here’s the Truth: Frontier Isn’t Pulling the Plug on Anything.”  It also launched a new website — Frontier Facts — telling customers it is not “pulling the plug” on any of its services.

Roscoe Spencer, Frontier’s local general manager, tells customers:

Recently, one of our competitors put up billboards, placed inserts in the newspapers and sent mailings to customers indicating we had pulled the plug on FiOS. This statement is simply not true, and we have taken legal action to insist that these false claims be stopped immediately.

Spencer

The spat began when Comcast began trying to recruit disaffected Frontier TV customers who found a massive rate increase notice in bills sent earlier this year.  Frontier blamed the rate increase on the loss of volume discounts former owner Verizon obtained for its FiOS TV service for television programming.  Frontier has sought to negotiate with programmers directly instead of working through a cooperative buying group, so the prices it pays for popular cable networks are much higher than what Comcast pays for a comparable video package.

Frontier watchers suggest the company is well aware its new video pricing is uncompetitive and customers will take their business elsewhere.  Frontier quickly began marketing DirecTV, a satellite provider, as a suitable replacement for those unhappy with the rate increase.  But Comcast also saw an opportunity to pick up new customers at the phone company’s expense, including through the use of billboards Frontier claims are misleading.

Frontier stresses its FiOS platform will continue to provide telephone, television, and broadband service, despite what Comcast’s billboards might suggest.

Despite the involvement of attorneys, Comcast has continued to thumb its nose at Frontier’s legal department.  Frontier spokesman Matt Kelley told the Journal Gazette Comcast was supposed to remove the billboards by Monday of this week, but they remain in place.

The cable company calls it a case of old fashioned competition.

Stop the Cap! reader Kevin calls Frontier’s marketing to get customers to drop FiOS TV for DirecTV a real blast from the past.

“It remains difficult for Frontier to sell people on its advanced fiber network when it is heavily marketing customers to get off of it and switch to DirecTV, a service that looked ultra-modern in the 1990s but today is just a rain-faded, pixellated nuisance,” Kevin says.  “Frontier blew it, Comcast took advantage of their strategic blunders, and now the whining has begun.”

Kevin is a former Verizon FiOS customer who was switched to Frontier when Verizon exited Fort Wayne.

“Verizon knew what they were doing, but eventually decided a few small cities in Indiana were not worth their time or interest, so they sold us off to Frontier, who ended up with a fiber network they’ve shown little interest in running except as an adopted curiosity,” Kevin adds.  “When we got notice of the rate increase, we canceled the TV service and now watch over the air television for free, supplemented with Netflix and Hulu.”

Kevin says Frontier ultimately did him a favor, discovering he was fine without a pay television package.

“Outside of breaking news and sports, you can get most everything else online.  Why pay more?”

[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Engadget Broadband in Europe.flv[/flv]

Rick Karr at Engadget delivers a sweeping indictment of America’s broadband duopoly in a special video presentation that explores Europe’s leapfrog advancements in broadband penetration, speed, and pricing.  It’s all made possible by technology policy.  In Europe, open access is guaranteed.  In the United States, telecommunications companies won the right to keep competitors off their networks.  The result is a staggering decline in America’s broadband ranking, now below Portugal and Italy.  So what happened to let Europe spring ahead of the United States?  Government regulation.

The game-changer in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands has been government regulators who have forced more competition in the market for broadband.

The market in the UK used to be much like ours here in the U.S.: British homes had two options for broadband service: the incumbent telephone company British Telecom (BT), or a cable provider. Prices were high, service was slow, and, as I mentioned above, Britain was falling behind its European neighbors in international rankings of broadband service.

The solution, the British government decided, was more competition: If consumers had more options when it came to broadband service, regulators reasoned, prices would fall and speeds would increase. A duopoly of telephone and cable service wasn’t enough. “You need to find the third lever,” says Peter Black, who was the UK government’s top broadband regulator from 2004 to 2008.

Starting around 2000, the government required BT to allow other broadband providers to use its lines to deliver service. That’s known as “local loop unbundling” — other providers could lease the loops of copper that runs from the telephone company office to homes and back and set up their own servers and routers in BT facilities.

Today, the UK’s broadband marketplace resembles America during dial-up Internet days, when customers could choose from a dozen or more providers and get substantial discounts or service tailored towards specific needs.  Today, that choice isn’t available from cable and phone companies.  There’s typically just one of each, and your practical choices usually end there. Thanks to Stop the Cap! reader Corey for sharing the story with us.

The video lasts 16 minutes.