AT&T California President talks with California Politics Today about video delivery franchising reform in California
AT&T California is now moving rapidly to achieve video franchising reform at the state level in California to facilitate its entry into the video delivery space throughout that state.
On April 4, 2006, Ken McNeely, President of AT&T California, spoke about that company's plans to bring more competition to the video delivery services space and about how it is going trying to achieve the reforms in the franchising process that it believes are necessary to make this possible in an exclusive half-hour-long audio interview on
California Politics Today that you can listen to in its entirety by clicking
here.
You can read more about AT&T California's plans for entering the video distribution service space by clicking on the title of this March 29, 2006, press release, entitled
"AT&T Ready to Bring Choice and Competition to Cable Subscribers in California; Speaker's Legislation to Pave the Way For Company's $1 Billion Investment."
AT&T California President Ken McNeely says three times that he knows of no plans to violate the principle of "net neutrality" by AT&T California
During that interview, Mr. McNeely responded to questions about whether or not AT&T California would be observing the principle of "net neutrality" in its business practices involving the new high-speed fiber-optic networks it wants to deploy under the new state-level franchising process it is seeking to implement.
You can listen to the exchange about "net neutrality" in his April 4, 2006,
California Politics Today (CPT) interview by clicking
here.
You can read a transcript of that dialogue below:
CPT:
Let me raise one final complaint that some people have about this situation. It comes under the rubric of "net neutrality" and the argument goes that the phone company and the cable company, having grown in part because of content offered by web sites and web services such as Google will want to charge money to the providers of these services and thereby create a multi-tiered Internet that will privilege some content providers and put others at a disadvantage. What's your philosophical view on that and what are your practical plans in terms of implementing or not implementing net neutrality through these networks.
Ken McNeely:
I'll hit the latter first. I'm not aware of any plans from any business as usual strategy that we have. We continue to see the Internet as an open forum and continue to do business in that manner.
CPT:
Mr. Whitacre, the president when it was SBC, said
he'd be nuts to let his pipes be used for free. Has he changed his mind?
Ken McNeely:
Well, again, again, I know no plans to but as business as usual, open Internet for all.
CPT:
People wouldn't need to expect that Google would have to pay you for access to its customers?
Ken McNeely:
Again, I know of no plans.
CPT:
OK.
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