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PUZZLE? This
Week's
Cover
Dear Editor LookRadio 120
PIXELS 3 columns 02
AT&T TIMELINE - TELEPHONE LAND-LINES and NBS
WIRELESS TELEPHONY 1901 - In a
corporate reorganization, American Telephone and
Telegraph acquires the assets of its parent,
American Bell Telephone, and becomes the parent of
the Bell System. / AT&T's annual report for
1900, its first full year as the parent company of
the Bell System 1902
01 -
Stubblefield
claims the leader of wireless telephone broadcast
(Voice), after the second of four
public wireless telephone demonstrations held in
the U.S. The demonstration was held on January 1,
1902, -- 21 days after the Marconi "S" was
transmitted 1902 03 -
Stubblefield's -
World's First Ship To Shore Radio Wireless
Telephone Broadcast - Washington, D.C.
Demonstration. On March 20, 1902, Stubblefield set
up a demonstration on the Potomac River in
Washington, utilizing his "groundless antenna"
connected to the mast of the ship. 1902 - Stubblefield's
Wireless Telephone Company Of America -
Incorporation Papers - Filed In Prescott, Arizona,
on May 22, 1902. Gehring, Stubblefield and Fennell,
incorporated their new company in the State of
Arizona, 75% of the Collins' Wireless Telephone
Company was given to Stubblefield, for the patent
rights in Canada. 1902 05 -
Stubblefield's
- Philadelphia Wireless Radio Telephone
Demonstration - On May 30, 1902, just a
little over two months after this Washington
Demonstration, Stubblefield gave demonstrations of
his wireless telephone in Philadelphia at the
Belmont Mansion. 1902 0611 -
Stubblefield's New
York Demonstration - is held jointly with
his Wireless Telephone Company Of America, in
Battery Park, New York City. In this exhibit,
again, one of the transmitters was connected
directly to the local telephone company's switch
board for mass party-line broadcasting. 1907
0405 -
Stubblefield In
Washington. Nathan B. Stubblefield's
Wireless Telephone Patent Application Filed Apr. 5,
1907, Serial No. 366,544 -Room 109. The first
permanent wireless telephone broadcasting
installation was in January, 1892. The station was
constructed in Murray, Kentucky, by Stubblefield's
Teleph-on-del-green Industrial College, on the
campus where Murray State University is now
located, 1907 1017 -
Stubblefield's
Wireless Telephone Patent Application
Approved by Commissioner Allen - Nathan
B. Stubblefield - (Patent Expires October 17,
1924). 1907 - Theodore
Vail begins his second term as President of
AT&T (he had been president in 1885-1887) He
develops the philosophy, strategy, and structure
that guides AT&T and the Bell System for the
next seventy years. 1907 - Vail begins
national advertising, and introduces the slogan
"One System, One Policy, Universal
Service." 1908
0512 - PATENT:
Stubblefield
Received His All Purpose - Wireless Telephone
Patent, Number
887,357
Click to Go
To US Patent Office -- then Click Full Text to
refresh page.
- (Patent
Expires May 12, 1925) 1909 - American Telephone and Telegraph
(AT&T) began buying up the stock and patents of
their bankrupt rivals. But AT&T's acquisitions
troubled federal authorities, which began
considering antitrust action. 1910 to 1916 1913 - AT&T
settles its first federal anti-trust suit with a
document known as the Kingsbury Commitment. It
establishes AT&T as a government sanctioned
monopoly. In return, AT&T agrees to divest the
controlling interest it had acquired in the Western
Union telegraph company, and to allow non-competing
independent telephone companies to interconnect
with the AT&T long distance network.
1941 -
Edward E. Whitacre, the
son of a railroad worker and union activist,
was born. He is expected to retire in November,
when he turns 67, but the AT&T board recently
extended his contract to 2008. 1963 -
Whitacre began his career with the
Southwestern Bell Telephone Company in 1963 as a
facility engineer. 1964 -
Whitacre was a native of Ennis, Texas
and graduated from Texas Tech University in 1964
with a bachelor's degree in Industrial
Engineering. 1984 - The
government breaks upTheodor Vail's dream of
"one Universal Phone Service"
in 1984, 1988 - In
October 1988, Whitacre was made president and chief
operating officer of Regional Bell Operating
Company, Southwestern Bell Corporation. 1990 - Two
years later, Whitacre obtained his current position
as chairman of the board and chief executive
officer. 1991 - NBS100's
LookRadio founded, Murray, Kentucky. 1995 - In
1995, Southwestern Bell Corporation changed its
name to SBC Communications. Whitacre led SBC
through a series of mergers and acquisitions in
building the largest provider of both local long
distance telephone services and wireless service
(through its Cingular division) in the United
States. 1997 - SBC
acquires Pacific Telesis. 1998 - SBC
acquires SNET. 1999 - SBC
acquires Comcast Cellular, and Ameritech. 2004 - In
early 2004, Whitacre snatched AT&T Wireless, a
separately owned and traded company, from rival
bidder Vodafone Group in England, with an offer at
2:30 a.m. Eastern time while Vodafone executives
thought the bidding was over and they had won.
Vodafone's board declined to match the
bid. By the end of
2004, the old AT&T as well as MCI Inc., the
nation's two largest long-distance carriers, were
facing declining growth. 2005 - SBC
reached a deal in late January 2005 to buy its
former parent company. Two weeks later, Verizon
Communications Inc., then the nation's largest
phone company, agreed to buy
MCI. 2006 -
Whitacre, AT&T proposed acquisition
of BellSouth for $67-billion. 3.
Editor's Note
/
ABOUT EDWARD
WHITACRE More
Articles Converging
News 112006 / TeleCom BuyOuts, Spinoffs and Asset
Seizure Boom Respectfully
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- 102 Is AT&T's Edward E. Whitacre Jr. of
2006, the Theodore Vail of 1906? "Sort of, but this
time, says Troy Cory, "Whitacre has the wireless
telephone, the Internet, LookRadio, VoIP, Google,
Yahoo, NBS100-wifi and the Timeline. on his side.
Should Cingular wireless be featured in the NBS
Movie?
Photos:
Theodore
Vail is picture in 1906 at his desk.
Insert photos, Edward E.
Whitacre Jr. Background photos: of
Edward Whitacre, and the N. B. Stubblefield patent,
1907 with 1902 drawings of the wireless telephone.
The government broke up Theodor Vail's dream of
"one
Universal Phone Service" in
1984.--
1.
Feature
Story /
March 7, 2006
/
Hong
Kong
Triad
/
"Jockey Club"
RadioPlayMusic
.
. . is AT&T's Edward E. Whitacre Jr. of 2006,
the Theodore Vail of 1906?
"Sort of," says Troy Cory-Stubblefield, the
head of the 100 year old NBS100 family trust entity
that represents the wireless telephone invention.
"Nathan B. Stubblefield patented and trademarked
his FiWi and WiFi system, way back when in 1892 and
1907,
respectfully,"
-- says Troy.
When
AT&T's, Theodore
Vail first
heard about N.B. Stubblefield's
wireless
telephone in
1902, Vail was just commencing his universal plan
to replace "dit dah" telegraph lines, with AT&T
"voice" telephone service, linked into every home
and office in America.
Included
in a small monthly telephone
bill, was the
installation of a free telephone number with a
two-way mechanical telephone
wired
to Vail's copper land-lines. The user could talk to
Mama anytime, he/she wished.
Although there was no Internet, LookRadio, VoIP,
Google, Yahoo, WiFi, Firewire, or FCC that Theodore
Vail had to deal with in 1902, there was the NBS
wireless telephone and Marconi's wireless telegraph
dit dah system, just around the corner. By 1910,
when the executives and lobbyists for the
tree-cutters and copper wire manufacturers groups
were mounting
protest that
-- "the only thing that could cannibalize their
existing telegraphy and telephony land-line
Tele-pole monopoly, would be the NBS100 wireless
telephone system, they were right on," said Troy.
"By the stroke of a pen -- they helped changed the
name to Radio!"
The actions of Congress in both 1984 and 1996,
empowered the FCC to break-up AT&T's monopoly
into several individual "Baby Bells." As it so
happened, the Regional Bell Operating Company of
SBC, selected Whitacre as its president and chief
operating officer, in October 1988.
When Whitacre took over the Bell Operating Company,
he had no idea that talks were still underway and
that big changes may be on the horizon to handicap
those "Baby Bells" that figured they could maintain
their monolopy on the million of miles of copper
wires still hanging onto old
"Ma Bell's"
unsightly
Tele-poles.
It was soon after Congress
passed the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which
was designed to spur line-sharing activities
between competing phone
companies,
that helped the Dot.com, DSL and VoIP connections
era to explode into the home. Verizon, MCI, Sprint,
Quest and Global Crossing were all assigned their
own phone numbers to connect directly into the
"Baby Bell" system. The cost of all of these doings
were to be borne by the sale of the NBS wireless
telephone frequencies by the FCC, and the special
"at cost rates" provided by the "Baby Bells."
"While Whitacre
critics are mounting protest that Whitacre is
putting "old Ma Bell back together again,"
says
Troy,
"we
here at NBS100, are looking forward to more
frequency sales by the FCC, and for more "Baby
Bell" buyouts, especially if AT&T joins in on
our 'Wireless Cemetery' RFID Internet project for
America." CLICK
FOR MORE
STORY.
The
American
Telephone & Telegraph
company
monopoly Theodore Vail started to create over 100
years ago, was to control copper land-lines in
America. "But, that's not the case
for
Whitacre's
new
AT&T," says Troy, "and we hope his focus will
be on AT&Teleph-on-del-green wireless. --
CLICK
FOR MORE Teleph-on-del-green STORY
1907.
"Maybe
their ears are clogged, I don't know."
But since
Whitacre's
latest takeover of AT&T by SBC, the FCC has
been largely quiet on the "monopoly" issue.
"Maybe," says Troy, "it's because the agency is so
overly hyped up about our recent NBS100 $38-billion
dollar claim, and the "Payola" scam, that it took
their mind off both the SBC and Sprint, "billion
dollar buy-outs."
The payola investigation
stems from a pay for play payout to an Entercom
station in Niagara Falls, N.Y.; and the NBS100
$38-billion dollar. The NBS100 claim demands
payment for RF spectrums sold by the agency, which
were never paid for. The claims were given to the
agency last year for investigation. The FCC has not
announced any results of its findings since the
filings.
FCC insiders said that New
York DA prosecuter, Eliot Spitzer's investigators
are frustrated by the agency's inaction, and had
stopped sharing documents with them.
Spitzer told ABC News last
month, "I would like to see the FCC more directly
involved in addressing what is very clearly a
"payola scandal" -- that has run rife through the
industry. As for the NBS100 $30-billion claim, we
have been trying to reach out to them in our
allegations, "but have failed to do so," said
attorney Charles Portz, of Houston.
CLICK
FOR MORE $30-billion
STORY.
Spitzer reiterated that critique on
Wednesday, March 8th, telling a reporter with the
Associated Press, "The FCC must come to life on
this "Payola" issue. Maybe their ears are clogged,
I don't know." CLICK
FOR MORE "Payola"
STORY.
As
for AT&T, and its baby Bells comeback to the
fold strategy has worked. Each Bell unit has been
able to maintain its nationwide reach in the old
AT&T - Bell tradition. The government was able
to assertain, what happened in the early 1900s
happened again in 2006. All competition have fallen
by the way side, without the help of government
seizing the properties of Global Crossing, MCI,
Quest, Verizon or Sprint.
Local and long-distance
calling, wireless phones, and Internet services,
including Streaming Video, VoIP, and Internet WiFi
telephony. Just last week, AT&T won approval
from Anaheim, California officials to install an
Internet-video infrastructure. "Next, it will be
Wireless Cemeteries, think about that," says Troy,
"over 2 million cemetery transmitters beaming hot
spots in the big city over the Internet, to help
maintain our legacy values."
That
could be a challenge for a man who said last fall
that Internet portals such as Google and Internet
telephone companies were going to have to pay for
using the broadband piped into his customers' homes
-- even though subscribers already pay AT&T for
that access.
Whitacre has earned a
reputation for being pugnacious, stubborn and
willing to fight to the end, but those who deal
with him see a person who will give something
"free," if he can get something back in the future.
The primary revenue from founders of Google and
Amazon, come from KudoAds, Adsense. AT&T, as an
Internet provider, will become and advertising
giant.
Maybe AT&T will make
Whitacre into an Internet hero, like Microsoft,
Google and Mac did Gates, Brin, Page and Steve
Jobs. "Of course, at the same time, they can help
him devise a plan to help pay for the 1902 Wireless
Telephone and WiFi land-land systems --
devised and predicted by Stubblefield and Vail, "to
keep the two pioneers happy in Soulfind.com,"
says Troy.
Vail's "One System
Policy," was headlined in the
Kingsbury
Commitment -- in 1913, he
fought Congress and the State regulatory agencies
-- and Vail won.
"Whitacre's very
self-confident, but not in a forward, ostentatious
way," said Carl W. Wood, a former California Public
Utilities Commission member. "You definitely get
the feeling that you're meeting with someone who
has a lot of power and
influence."
Wood, who considered
himself the consumers' commissioner, was at odds
with Whitacre when Wood, among other things, sought
to keep wholesale rates low for competitors seeking
to lease lines from Whitacre's
company.
Whitacre complained that
those rates were below cost. Along with BellSouth
and Verizon Communications Inc. executives, he
fought in court and at the State level regulatory
agencies -- and Whitacre won.
1910 - Mann-Elkins Act -
Congress first vested federal regulatory
authority over telephone services in the Interstate
Commerce Commission, under this Act of 1910. This
followed the practice of local franchising
initiated by states and municipalities to control
rates and service quality for land-line phone
companies.
Making AT&T a
quasi like arm of the U.S. Government, to seize the
assets of other telecom companies, by "natural"
reasons, was one of the regulatory missteps, that
was overlooked by state's rights backers.
The Act cemented
AT&T's control of America's telephone land-line
network and was the door opener for the emerging
wireless radio broadcasting industry led by NBC.
The monopoly's power to supervise war time patent
pools, was a dream come true for AT&T.
After the war's end,
AT&T, claimed the telecom assets and
frequencies as theirs, and the regulators agreed
ruling that such procedures were necessary to
control the interconnections that were being tied
into the future of America's telecom system's
targets
The Kingsbury
Commitment, was a simple letter from the vice
president of AT&T', Nathan Kingsbury, dated,
December 9, 1913, in which AT&T agreed with the
U.S. Attorney General, that it would divest itself
of Western Union.
The company agreed it
would also provide long-distance services to
independent exchanges under certain conditions and
to refrain from any and all acquisitions if the
Interstate Commerce Commission objected.
This
prompted AT&T company officials to propose what
subsequently became known as the "Kingsbury
Commitment", as more fully described herein. See
Contents
After the U.S.
Attorney General announced the acceptance of
AT&T's Kingsbury Commitment in 1913, and upon
the advice and assurance that the telecom
commitment would be enforced by the U.S. Attorney
General's office, the Signal Corps "dream team"
stepped aside and fell into the background in 1913.
1990 -
Whitacre, took over
the helm at SBC Communications Inc. in 1990 when
the San Antonio company was the smallest of seven
Baby Bells created by the AT&T breakup. Ma Bell
took the long-distance network, leaving the local
networks to its former subsidiaries.
1996 - FCC
visit by Whitacre. One day, Hundt of the FCC said,
a tall, well-fit man sat alone outside his FCC
office soon after Congress passed the
Telecommunications Act of 1996, which was designed
to spur phone
competition.
Although well known among telecom
executives, Whitacre could go unrecognized
elsewhere, "He was so low-key, the secretary didn't
even recognize him," Hundt said. "After a while, he
sent in a note saying that Ed Whitacre was waiting
to talk with me."
Shortly after that, Whitacre announced a
deal to buy Pacific Bell and its parent company,
Pacific Telesis. It was the first acquisition among
the Baby Bells. He later picked up Ameritech, which
covered five Midwestern states, and Southern New
England Telephone in
Connecticut.
"He has a real conviction as to how the
telecom market and technology are going to evolve,
and a real conviction on what his company needs to
do to remain competitive," said Altman, who as head
of investment firm Evercore Partners in New York
has helped Whitacre put together deals over the
last five years.
Both deals won federal and state approvals
over protests from consumers, corporate customers
and smaller phone
companies.
2005 -
SBC acquires AT&T .
2005 - AT&T
is purchased by SBC, for $16 billion. SBC, headed
by Whitacre; takes over two of the regional Bells
(Pacific Telesis and Ameritech).
2005 -
SBC acquired the struggling AT&T for $16
billion. The phone market is fundamentally
different now, however. Cable TV companies sell
phone and high-speed Internet service over their
networks; mobile phones have become an increasingly
affordable alternative to a home phone line; and
numerous Web-based companies let users make calls
through the Internet for little or no charge.
2006 - This
time, the newly reconstituted AT&T, formerly
known as SBC, has agreed to buy BellSouth, the
dominant local phone company in the South, in a
stock swap worth about $67 billion. The merger
would combine the erstwhile Ma Bell's
market-leading long-distance business with local
phone companies serving 22 states, or about 40% of
the country's phone
lines.
To Whitacre, the purchase of BellSouth is
not re-creating the Ma Bell monopoly. The landscape
is far different from 1984, a time before wireless,
before the Internet grew and before any high-speed
access existed.
With cellphones, Internet telephony, cable
phone service and fast Internet service and the
coming broadband technologies -- high-speed
wireless and broadband over power lines -- Whitacre
doubted in an interview last year that competition
would be squelched.
"Consumers have more choices than they've
ever had before," he
said.
However, Whitacre answers critics or pushes
the boundaries, his chances of getting what he
wants are good.
"Ten years and one month after Congress
passed the Telecom Act, Ed's become the biggest
winner so far," Hundt said. "That's a long time to
build a company, and I don't think he's made a bad
acquisition along the line, while almost everyone
else has."
2006 - AT&T
and Verizon offers video services through
high-speed Internet lines that can compete with
cable and satellite TV operators. The proposed
merger could actually promote that competition.
Offering video through broadband Fiber or DSL
connections would be the pipeline that pushes
high-speed Internet service into more
homes.
"Will AT&T attempt to soak customers or
extract extra fees from Web-based companies?" ask
critics who have heard troubling comments by
Whitacre, about companies such as Google having to
pay to use "his" pipes.
AT&T says it merely wants to charge
websites for delivering faster service to users.
Rather than trusting the company not to hamper the
Internet or play favorites, regulators should
require it to pledge to preserve a level playing
field for all websites, programmers and services as
a condition of the BellSouth deal. Customers and
websites shouldn't have to pay twice to connect to
each other, nor should AT&T or any other
network operator be able to give any site or
service an unfair advantage over its
competitors.
Again, like today,
there were just as many judicial activists then,
earning a place in history, by making things
happen. They angered the electromagnet wave
industry innovators, who viewed the court rulings
as "overly zealous regulators, with self-serving
agendas", says attorney Scott Stubblefield.
Both federal and local
judges helped establish the precedents for
implementing the Mann-Elkins Act of 1910, and the
1913 "Kingsbury Commitment, that ended any dreams
the Kentucky "Big Six" had in creating a National
Broadcasting System (NBS) telecom monopoly in
Kentucky. (Both Squier and AT&T's, Theodore
Vail had worked on the founding of the Mann-Elkins
Act of 1910. Squier was co-holder of several
patents filed by AT&T).
Edward E. Whitacre, Jr.,
commonly known as Ed Whitacre, is chairman of the
board and chief executive officer of AT&T
(formerly known as SBC
Communications).
Whitacre began his career
with the Southwestern Bell Telephone Company in
1963 as a facility engineer. In October 1988,
Whitacre was made president and chief operating
officer of Regional Bell Operating Company,
Southwestern Bell Corporation.
Two years later, Whitacre
obtained his current position as chairman of the
board and chief executive officer. In 1995,
Southwestern Bell Corporation changed its name to
SBC Communications. Whitacre led SBC through a
series of mergers and acquisitions in building the
largest provider of both local long distance
telephone services and wireless service (through
its Cingular division) in the United States.
These acquisitions included
Pacific Telesis (1997), SNET (1998), Comcast
Cellular (1999), Ameritech (1999) and AT&T
(2005), as well as the current (2006) proposed
acquisition of Bell
South.
Whitacre was a native of
Ennis, Texas and graduated from Texas Tech
University in 1964 with a bachelor's degree in
Industrial
Engineering.
Rules and regulations in the
telecommunications industry is a hard thing to
swallow for Edward E. Whitacre Jr., and he has
complained loudly about how they hinder
growth.
But the chairman of AT&T
Inc. has built the nation's biggest telecom empire
with little worry that his plans will be
foiled.
"Ed would say that I didn't
pass the right rules and that my successors didn't
pass the right rules," said Reed Hundt, former
chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.
"But the vagaries of regulation have not gotten in
the way of his dream, and he's made his business
dream come
true."
AT&T's planned
acquisition of BellSouth Corp. for $67 billion
worth of stock -- in a deal announced Sunday, March
5th -- would be the crowning achievement of a
45-year career that has seen the 6-foot-4-inch
Texan transform the smallest regional phone company
into a global
power.
"Ed is a visionary. He has a
very long-term point of view and he knows exactly
what he believes in," said Roger C. Altman,
Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration.
"You don't meet many people who are as sure in what
they believe in, long-term, as Ed does."
Whitacre expects to retire in 2008, when he turns
67.
Josie
Cory
Publisher/Editor
TVI Magazine
TVI
Magazine, tviNews.net, YES90, Your Easy Search,
Associated Press, Reuters, BBC, LA Times, NY Times,
VRA's D-Diaries, Industry Press Releases, They Said
It and SmartSearch were used in compiling and
ascertaining this Yes90 news
report.
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Is AT&T's Edward E. Whitacre Jr. of 2006,
the Theodore Vail of 1906? "Sort of, but this time,
says Troy Cory, "Whitacre has the wireless
telephone, the Internet, LookRadio, VoIP, Google,
Yahoo, NBS100-wifi and the Timeline. on his side.
Should Cingular wireless be featured in the NBS
Movie?
NEWS
Convergence - 10 Week of 2006 Winter
Issue
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Feature
Story / 110AT&Tmonopoly2006style.htm
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