Lobbying

Bell Foes Create Web Site To Fight 'Merger Monster'

by Andrew Noyes

A band of Bell telephone competitors plans to unveil a stinging online public-awareness campaign Tuesday that takes aim at AT&T's planned union with BellSouth.

MergerMonster.com will provide news and information from companies, public-interest groups and consumer organizations that oppose the unification.

The Alliance for Competition in Telecommunications, whose members include XO Communications, Nuvox Communications, CBeyond Communications, Eschelon Telecom and TDS Metrocom, launched the site and founded the new Competition Coalition, a spokesman said.

MergerMonster's homepage will feature a modified version of AT&T's logo with red eyes, sharp fangs and wagging, octopus-like tentacles. The site also will sport the floating heads of Sen. John Sherman, a Republican from Ohio and namesake of a landmark antitrust law; President Theodore Roosevelt, who used that law to stop railroad monopolies; and President Ronald Reagan, who served when the government dismantled AT&T and created regional Bell companies.

The coalition likens the merger to "a bad horror sequel ... that we all thought was dead and buried" rising up to "terrorize consumers with poor customer service, inflated prices, job cuts, digital discrimination and privacy invasion." ACTel said the so-called "monster" is "delirious with power" but did not expect to encounter resistance from groups "ready to stand up to its unquenchable thirst for even greater market share."

The coalition includes consumer groups like the Southern Media Justice Coalition, an Atlanta-based grassroots organization representing more than 100,000 Georgians, as well as the nonprofit Media Access Project. The Georgia division of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which represents low- and moderate-income families, also backs the coalition.

MAP President Andrew Schwartzman issued a statement Monday explaining why he joined the coalition. "Broadband technologies offer the possibility, but not the certainty, of more democracy, more innovation and a better life for all," he said. "The merger of AT&T and BellSouth will deny all Americans the opportunity to realize these benefits by stifling economic growth, innovation and democratic discourse."

Those opposed to the merger are operating in "a time machine" and "punched in the mid-1990s instead of 2006," AT&T spokeswoman Claudia Jones said. Their arguments are at least a decade old and are "rooted in a view that no longer exists."

She said the merger will occur "amid an onslaught of competition in communications markets" and provides no basis to conclude that it would harm competition, consumers or businesses.

BellSouth spokesman Jeff Battcher said state-level clearances for the merger are going well, with most impacted states already giving their blessings. The companies also are awaiting FCC and Justice Department approval. "We definitely feel this is the right thing for all constituencies concerned," he said.

ACTel has also weighed in during Judge Emmet Sullivan's Tunney Act examination in U.S. district court in Washington. The court is investigating the pairings of AT&T with SBC Communications and MCI with Verizon Communications. Even though the mergers occurred last year, the Tunney Act requires that a judge review whether Justice's separate approval was in the public interest.