Today the incumbent phone and cable carriers hosted a roundtable forum, sponsored by The Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy and the Technology Policy Institute. The "discussion," which featured a smattering of academics for legitimacy's sake and no consumer advocates, was a who's who of incumbent telecom lobbyists and hired think tankers. Most of the forum's participants spent their time praising the FCC's new broadband plan, which as we've discussed, is a good sign the plan fails to rattle the status quo or tackle competition.

AT&T's chief lobbyist Jim Cicconi, who surely had a lion's share of input into the plan, repeatedly praised the FCC's "fact-driven" approach to policy, though only apparently if the facts in question were approved by AT&T.

At around 4:45 in this video, Cicconi can barely hold back a laugh at the failure of the open access push. That failure was, in part, thanks to the FCC's Blair Levin, who recently admitted the FCC (or at least Levin), lacked the courage to challenge carriers like AT&T in court.

Specifically, Cicconi claims Harvard researcher Yochai Benkler has "the faint whiff of sour grapes." Why? Because in an editorial last weekend, Benkler complained that the FCC essentially ignored his study. Said study contained data that argued that open access policies lead to competition and lower prices across global markets. In France, for instance, open access policies led to multiple Parisian fiber companies competing, which resulted in prices plummeting (as in, 100Mbps/50Mbps fiber service, VoIP and IPTV bundles for $40 a month). AT&T's clearly happy the FCC ignored this data, and hopes the trend continues.

Back in 2007, lobbyists like AT&T's Cicconi and Verizon's Tom Tauke didn't want a broadband plan. Now that there is one, the baby bells' focus will obviously be on shaping it to their liking as the FCC begins the gladiatorial effort of actual rule making. For the baby bells, this means less regulation of incumbents, more regulation for threats like Google, weakened FCC authority, and changing the USF so more money goes to AT&T and Verizon. Of course Cicconi and Tauke can't just say this is their goal, so they work hard to dress up simple revenue-driven lobbying as altruism and consumer advocacy.

Ever since the FCC began crafting a broadband plan and thinking about network neutrality protections, Verizon's top lobbyist Tom Tauke has toned down his rhetoric from recent years, in the hopes of stalling new consumer protections. Tauke's now taken a strong fancy to saying things that sound quite consumer friendly (empowered consumers!), provided you completely ignore Verizon's long history of anti-competitive behavior, or their recent decision to literally hang up on millions of rural customers. Luckily for Verizon and Tauke, the press usually does.

Today saw Tauke pour it on particularly thick in his speech at a forum. In his turn at the microphone, a lobbyist for a company not known to be gentle when crushing competitors underfoot, magically became a huge fan of the broadband plan, consumer advocacy, and even arch-enemy Google:So, by empowered consumers, Tauke must be referring to consumers being allowed to use applications that Verizon hasn't intentionally crippled to prop up dying business models? And by "transparent business practices," Tauke must be referring to milking consumers for millions of dollars by using a computer glitch Verizon is fully aware of? And when Tauke talks about "finding common ground with Google," he must mean paying "consultants" to smear them? And by "informed consumers," Verizon must be referring to the consumers they fight in court to prevent getting access to broadband mapping data?

Tauke's call for overhaul of telecom policy is not new -- the laws do need to be changed to incorporate the litany of changes facing the sector, most of which involve the eventual waning power of Tauke's employer. However, given Verizon's history -- it's unlikely any reasonable, "informed" consumer wants Verizon dictating those changes. Meanwhile, there's a huge chasm between what a lobbyist says, and what the company they lobby for actually does. And again, luckily for AT&T and Verizon, nobody in the press is going to really bother to point that out as the baby bells "participate" in crafting the finer details of the broadband plan.