Free Republic

Excerpt - AT&T Inc. is nearing the acquisition of BellSouth Corp. for roughly $65 billion, people familiar with the situation said Saturday evening. A deal could be announced as early as Monday, these people said. ~snip~

CHICAGO, Feb. 1 (UPI) -- The surviving Baby Bells -- Verizon, Bell South and AT&T/SBC -- have disclosed that they may someday charge new fees to digital businesses, sites like Google and Yahoo!, that generate substantial traffic on the Internet. The explicit rationale? These firms are taking up too much bandwidth. But telecom experts tell United Press International's The Web that they are worried that such a "toll road" could take a toll on the future growth of the Internet. "The mere mention of the words 'toll road' sound like government regulation is right behind," Chris Consorte, president and chief...

SBC Communications, the second-largest regional phone company in the nation, is in talks to buy AT&T for more than $16 billion, according to executives close to the negotiations. A deal, if reached, would be the final chapter in the 120-year history of AT&T, the first technological giant of the modern age and the original model for telecommunications companies worldwide. A deal would be a reunion of sorts, putting back together some of the largest pieces of the Ma Bell telephone monopoly, which was broken up in 1984. The talks, which the executives described as "fluid" and "very, very sensitive"...

<p>Apart from its steel tariffs, the Bush Administration's biggest economic blunder has been the hash it has made of telecom regulation. The good news is that a federal court has just handed the White House a chance to make amends.</p>

ATLANTA - Cingular Wireless won the bidding war to acquire AT&T Wireless Services for nearly $41 billion in cash, a deal that would create the nation’s largest cell phone company. The merger between the second and third largest U.S. wireless companies was announced Tuesday as Britain’s Vodafone Group PLC withdrew from the contest after four days of rising bids.

<p>NEW YORK (CNN/Money) – Looks like investors have one more reason to hang up on telecom stocks.</p> <p>The Federal Communications Commission Thursday voted to not eliminate current rules that force the Baby Bells to lease access on their local lines at a discounted rate. Instead, the FCC left the matter to state regulators.</p>

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) - SBC Communications' President William Daley said Monday that unless regulators and legislators ease up on monopoly rules that are hurting the telecom industry, the collapse of the largest telecom companies could grow worse. "The industry is in a meltdown," Daley said Monday in an address at the Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco. "And it's just a brushfire compared to the wildfire that could be on the way." According to Daley, about 500,000 telecom-industry jobs have been lost and $2 trillion in market capital has evaporated in the last 18 months. Daley, a former...

What should be done with, or for, the Bells? Investors, lawmakers, regulators and, increasingly, consumers, are engrossed with that question as the large local phone carriers known as the Baby Bells struggle with their first decline in customers since the Depression. The erosion is fueling talk of whether the government should step in to strengthen these companies to protect a vital public service. At the heart of the debate is an arcane but crucial regulation that requires Verizon Communications, SBC Communications, BellSouth and Qwest Communications International to sell access on their networks to competitors at prices that can be...

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- The local telephone industry's financial woes have become a tool in an intense lobbying campaign for deregulation. The fix being sought by the industry: Elimination of rules that require companies like SBC Communications Inc. to lease elements of their networks at deep discounts to competitors that are entering the local telephone service market, like AT&T Corp. or WorldCom Inc. . But regulation isn't the sole cause of SBC's decline in net income last quarter, says David Loomis, an economist at Illinois State University who previously worked for Bell Atlantic, now Verizon. Regulation isn't the only reason...