FCC approves buyout of BellSouth by AT & amp;T

It was the last major regulatory hurdle.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Federal Communications Commission unanimously approved AT & amp;T Inc.'s 86 billion buyout of BellSouth Corp. Friday, the day after the company offered a new slate of concessions for consumers and competitors.
The FCC's approval was the last major regulatory hurdle for the proposed deal, which is the largest telecommunications merger in U.S. history.
Lawyers for AT & amp;T and the two Democratic commissioners who had opposed the merger, hammered out a compromise, the details of which were released Thursday night.
Among the conditions offered by AT & amp;T is a promise to observe "network neutrality" principles, an offer of 19.95 per month stand-alone digital subscriber line service and a vow to divest some wireless spectrum.
AT & amp;T offered the concessions after a little more than a week of marathon negotiations with lawyers who work for the two Democrats on the commission, Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein.
Adelstein said Friday he was pleased with the agreement.
"We got substantial concessions that are going to mitigate a lot of the harms that would otherwise have resulted from this merger," he said.
Negative reaction
The reaction from Commission Chairman Kevin Martin, however, was decidedly negative. The chairman found some conditions to be "unnecessary" and said that some "impose burdens that have nothing to do with the transaction, are discriminatory, and run contrary to commission policy and precedent."
Copps was cautiously optimistic, saying that the approval was "not a triumph for huge corporate mergers but a modest victory for American consumers." He added that he was not entirely satisfied with the compromise but believed it is "a genuine step forward" in several areas.
Consumer advocates had opposed the merger from the beginning, but put the best face on the compromise, especially on the issue of network neutrality, which can be loosely defined as the idea that all Internet traffic should be treated equally.
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