Former Virginia Demoratic Congressman Rick Boucher used to have a lot of credibility in the technology field, urging regulators to aim high when it came to broadband goals, while being one of the pre-eminent voices for fair use rights. What's he doing since leaving Congress? Helping AT&T crush competition.
Fresh off of the rejected T-Mobile deal, AT&T's been on an anti-competitive lobbying tear of late (ok, they're always on an anti-competitive lobbying tear), trying to
make Dish's LTE build fail, while burying a bunch of language in the
Payroll Tax bill that erodes FCC authority and crushes any and all future AT&T competitors -- including White Space broadband.
Enter Rick Boucher, now employed by the law firm of Sidley Austin, which has been representing AT&T for most of the last one-hundred years.
AT&T has Boucher making the editorial rounds lately without fully disclosing he's an AT&T lobbyist. Over at the "Internet Innovation Alliance" (aka AT&T), Boucher argues it's not fair for the FCC to consider spectrum holdings when crafting spectrum auction rules -- rules that would prevent AT&T from simply squatting on additional spectrum for anti-competitive benefit. In a piece at Roll Call, Boucher uses language that will probably remind you of a certain lumbering, anti-competitive behemoth, lavishing praise on a wireless market whose constant price hikes suggest it's not quite so competitive:
quote:
During the past 10 years, consumers enjoyed plummeting prices per minute, per megabit and per message. The fact that wireless is a free and competitive market has led to this evolution, and estimates for future wireless growth hinge on it staying that way....A rule that disqualifies incentive auction bidders based on their size or their market position would be highly detrimental and severely undermine our effort to achieve these laudable goals.
While Boucher makes it sound noble, it comes down to AT&T wanting weaker regulators who'll let them squat mindlessly on publicly-owned airwaves while wireless competition stagnates and prices soar. The fact is AT&T doesn't want
any new serious entrants in the market, whether via White Space broadband or networks built by Dish Network. As always the pretense here is that Boucher and AT&T don't like regulation and love free markets. The reality is incumbent telecom giants
loathe free markets and
love regulation, but only when it's written by their lawyers and designed to protect their revenues from competition.While it's nice Boucher has found a way to keep food on the table, it's disappointing that it required selling nearly all of his principles down the river.
