There are reports that a vote on a Net Neutrality in the Senate will come much sooner than expected. King Ed during his speech said, “Some companies want us to be a big dumb pipe that gets bigger and bigger. . . .No one gets a free ride. The American economy doesn’t work that way. . . We are not going to build this with no chance for a return. Those that want to use this will pay.”

The remarks re-emphasized his position on the controversial issue, at a conference for state regulators of public utilites. AT&T needs friends in the NARUC given it’s rolling out new services like IPTV that need help from local regulators. The company is also trialling new services like WiMAX in an attempt to offer alternative wireless broadband in addition to high speed cellular.

While AT&T’s WiMAX service is not publicly available, one tester already has a review: Ed Whitacre, and he gives it an enthusiatic thumbs up. He told GigaOM.com after the speech that he uses the service at his home in Texas and gets 5.5 Mbps downstream over unlicensed spectrum. “It’s not ready for primetime, but I really like it,” he said.

Okay, that really explains why Ma Bell is pushing hard on WiMAX and other forms of wireless broadband.

The system can be deployed into a metropolitan market over any broadband medium including xDSL, cable, wireless, satellite, fiber and microwave. The integrated system also consists of the I-Master which is a real time authentication and rating engine that enables carriers to deploy the complex rating system which is required for securing new market opportunities.

Via tmcnet

Via [TMCnet]

Honestly, who can keep track of all of the Baby Bells, Ma Bell, the wireless services providers -- wasn't it supposed to be easier after the breakup of AT&T that began in 1974 with the U.S. Department of Justice anti-trust suit against the telephone monopoly. (Thanks Wiki! -- and more on that later.)

Now we have a news report about how AT&T is going to "de-brand" the Cingular name after its receent purchase of the company and turn it into AT&T; this after SBC bought AT&T earlier and deciced to change its brand nane to AT&T.

Crazy or what! 

But how about fixing the often spotty wireless service that Cingular (er, I mean, AT&T) provides -- why bother fixing the brand name if the brand attributes (the stuff that makes the brand the brand) aren't so good?

A little background music please:

Continuing the phone dereg history, under the terms of the settlement finalized on January 8, 1982, "Ma Bell" agreed to divest its local exchange service operating companies in return for a chance to go into the computer business as AT&T Computer Systems. (That's rich, isn't it?

Effective January 1, 1984, AT&T's local operations were split into seven independent Regional Holding Companies, also known as Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs) or "Baby Bells."

Reduced in value by approximately 70%, AT&T continued to operate all of its long-distance services, although it lost market share to competitors like MCI and Sprint.

Who knows what other deals lurks in the minds of the phone and wireless providers ...

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Hey, I'm all for companies making a buck on the products ands services they provide us consumers, but why does Apple have to charge $1.99 a month for faster wireless service on some of its MacBook and MacBook Pro laptops?

(Don't they make enough margin on the hardware to begin with?)  More on that here.

Now that news may get me a bit hot under the collar, but how about hotter still when we learn that Apple and Cingular (now AT&T) will make nearly a 50% margin (aka profit) on its first iPhones, according to this report.

Now those numbers set up some aggressive price cutting, according to sources, but I'm personally still waiting for CD prices to drop, like they were supposed to after the investment in the pressing plants was recouped.

Dream on ...

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(Ted Wallingford on Jan 19, 2007 12:55 PM) Apple charges more for everything. Interestingly, I hadn't heard of this before reading it here. I suspect it will largely flop like .Mac did. I believe .Mac should have been a free collaboration with Google or Yahoo but hindsight is 20/20.