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A War Worth Watching: Baby Bells v. Cable (Again)

  • NY Times, Monday, November 28, 2005 11:30 AM
Now that SBC has fattened itself by absorbing AT&T and assuming its corporate name, and with Verizon continuing on its spend-and-stomp tear, the next big war over delivery of content will be fought between the hard-charging Baby Bells and the big cable companies. So says Ken Belson of The New York Times, whose lengthy piece in yesterday's paper established the parameters of the coming contretemps. AT&T and Verizon are intent on buying and creating content, reported Belson, and they firmly believe that based on their long-standing relationship with customers, they can muscle in on territory that Comcast, Time Warner and others have claimed for themselves in recent years. Skeptics argue that the costs of entering the entertainment-content arena are so high that no business model could possibly make sense for the likes of AT&T and Verizon. But the former old-line telcos apparently see things differently and, for now, armed with enthusiasm and millions of miles of fiber-optic cable, they are marching forward. The old-line phone companies have been down this road before, and ultimately they retreated. This time, the Times says, the results are less predictable, and the stakes are higher than ever.

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