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MICHIGAN CITIES CRY FOUL
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: Linda Haugsted]
Municipal officials from across Michigan are stepping up in a very public way to oppose state House and Senate versions of an AT&T-backed franchise-reform bill that city officials say will wrest power from the local communities. These representatives from municipalities stress that their towns are open for business to any competitive providers -- and argue that their local rules are not a barrier to entry. The local leaders are responding to proposed bills which state that current franchising rules and buildout requirements create a barrier to entry at a time when speed to market is critical. The bill declares there is “minimal competition in facilities-based video programming,” even though Michigan was one of the states that best fostered cable competition last decade, during the telephone industry's prior push into cable. Ameritech New Media earned several franchises in the Detroit suburbs before the regional Bell company gave up on the business and sold out to WideOpenWest LLC, which continues to operate in the state in head-to-head competition with cable operators, including Comcast. The AT&T-backed bill would allow for statewide certification of new providers, who would agree to pay a 5% fee to local governments, plus a 1% fee on gross revenues to support public-access activities. Both fees are passed through to consumers. Though new providers are required to pay these fees, they can also qualify for a credit equal to the amount they spend on rights-of-way maintenance in local communities.
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6321213.html?display=Top+Stories

DOWN TO BUSINESS: THE ECONOMICS OF METRO WI-FI
[SOURCE: InformationWeek, AUTHOR: Rob Preston]
[Commentary] The politics of metro Wi-Fi center on special interests: the incumbent wireless carriers that want to protect their licensed monopolies or duopolies; the equipment makers that need fat contracts to pay for their R&D; the mayors and other elected officials who want to primp progressive for their constituents; as well as the state and national legislators taking mostly ideological sides. The societal issues revolve around whether affordable Internet access is a consumer or business necessity that demands some level of government assistance, or whether it's just another commercial good that's subject to supply and demand. The political and social squabbles are just background noise compared with the economics of metro Wi-Fi. If the economics of rolling out thousands of access points in congested cities prove compelling, critics don't have much of a case. But if the economics break down because these networks perform poorly or don't scale efficiently, metro Wi-Fi doesn't have a political or social leg to stand on. The economic arguments aren't as black and white. In places where there isn't much broadband competition, Wi-Fi holds great promise.
But in places that aren't Podunk small or tortilla flat, the potential for radio interference and signal degradation can't be ignored. Meantime, big city Wi-Fi networks, because of the sheer volume and power output of their access points, can interfere with smaller-footprint Wi-Fi networks already in place, experts say. And because the metro Wi-Fi industry is so immature, cities are locking themselves into pre-standard systems, mostly from small vendors. Ubiquitous broadband communications is a worthy public policy goal--to serve underserved citizens, cut municipal costs, and promote overall economic vitality. But don't equate a solution to a problem to the solution. Big city Wi-Fi may very well be the real deal, but a few intrepid municipalities may have to make some costly mistakes before we know for sure.
http://www.informationweek.com/hardware/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=1837...

* Why Municipal Wi-Fi May Be a Bad Investment for Cities
http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/redir.php?jid=813224c3cf616d05&cat=41163...

* An April's Fool. AKA When Verizon VPs Start Making Sense
http://www.digitaldivide.net/blog/sascha/view?PostID=12487

AT&T SEEKS FORMAL APPROVAL FOR MERGER
[SOURCE: WOIA-TV San Antonio, AUTHOR: Walker Robinson]
On Friday, AT&T and BellSouth formally asked the Justice Department and Federal Communications Commission to approve their $67 billion deal, which was announced March 5. Approval requests also were being filed in the states where they do business, and shareholders, too, will have to give their nod for San Antonio-based AT&T's purchase of Atlanta-based BellSouth to be completed. The two companies hope to close the deal by March 2007. In their FCC filing, the companies argue that joint ownership of Cingular Wireless has caused challenges in managing the nation's largest cell phone provider that would disappear if its parent companies were allowed to merge. They also noted that the merger would provide efficiencies for the combined company. A day after the deal was announced, AT&T said it plans to cut up to 10,000 jobs, mostly through normal turnover, if its purchase of BellSouth is approved. The work force reduction would take place over three years.
http://www.woai.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=7AB92C93-9D7A-49AE-...

MERGER DEAL IS REACHED WITH LUCENT AND ALCATEL
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Vikas Bajaj]
Alcatel and Lucent Technologies said yesterday that they had reached agreement on a $13.4 billion merger that would create a French-American maker of telecommunications equipment with revenue of $25 billion, 88,000 employees and phone company customers across the world. The deal comes in response to the increasing competition Western telecommunications firms are facing from low-cost Asian manufacturers, as well as the growing size and purchasing power of a few large phone companies. If Alcatel and Lucent are successful at combining their far-flung operations, which analysts say will be a significant challenge, it could prompt competitors like Ericsson, Nortel Networks and Siemens to seek their own deals so they can keep up. The combined company, which has yet to be named, would be based in Paris, where Alcatel has its headquarters. Lucent's legendary Bell Labs research center would remain in Murray Hill, N.J. Serge Tchuruk, Alcatel's chairman and chief executive, would be the nonexecutive chairman, and Patricia F. Russo, Lucent's chairman and chief executive, would become chief executive of the new company. Executives said they would lay off about 9,000 people, or 10 percent of their combined staff, in the next three years as part of an effort to cut costs by $1.7 billion. The companies did not provide a geographic breakdown of the job cuts, but they said the cuts would be spread out fairly. Lucent also dismissed concerns of employees and retirees about the fate of its pension plans, saying they were financially healthy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/03/business/03lucent.html
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