| Page 2 of 2 < |
MCI and AT&T Leave Little Guys Behind
|
TOOLBOX
   Resize
COMMENT
 Discussion Policy
 CLOSE
Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
Who's Blogging  |
Many of AT&T's hired guns are expected to stop lobbying for non-Bell companies when AT&T becomes part of SBC, according to industry sources.
Those include the LawMedia Group , a strategy group headed by former House Judiciary Committee minority counsel Julian Epstein , and DCI Group , another lobbying strategy group. Also likely to exit the competitive telecom scene with the AT&T merger: Steve Ricchetti and Charlie Black , well-connected Democratic and Republican strategists, respectively, and co-chairmen of Voices for Choices.
AT&T general counsel Jim Ciccone , regarded as one of the industry's most effective lobbyists, may even join forces with SBC, making that regional giant even more effective against smaller rivals, some say. He declined to comment.
"Clearly, it's a very different ecosystem without AT&T and MCI," said Andrew D. Lipman , who leads the telecommunications practice at Georgetown-based Swidler Berlin LLP , a law firm that represents MCI and represented dozens of upstart companies allied with AT&T and MCI. "To some extent it's like the U.S. and the U.K. pulling out of NATO."
Lipman said AT&T was a critical and much-heeded voice, not just on Capitol Hill and at the FCC, but at the state level, where telecommunications policies are hammered out at state utilities commissions and legislatures.
"AT&T has offices in virtually every state capital," public utilities commission and attorney general's office, Lipman said. That is matched by only the regional Bells, which have their own lobbying infrastructure to counter that, he said. "There is a recognition that the other players are going to have to pony up to the bar and pay more for their advocacy."
That reality is reflected in the fate of the competitive industry's trade associations, which this week merged into a single entity.
In 2003, the Competitive Telecommunications Association (CompTel) , which represented some of those local companies, merged with the Association of Communications Enterprises (Ascent) , another industry association, as membership numbers declined.
This week, the other remaining industry association representing these independent telecommunications companies, ALTS , or the Association for Local Telecommunications Services , merged with CompTel/Ascent. The combined firm is called CompTel/ALTS .
"I feel sadness; there's no question about it," Ernest B. Kelly III , president of Ascent until 2002, said about the fate of the hundreds of small companies that have gone under. At Ascent's height in early 2000, it had more than 850 members. Now the combined entity has about 370. "They still have a voice," Kelly said, "but they won't have the resources and they won't have the impact."
