AT&T Lobbyists Fail to Block Competition in Missouri [telecom]

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by Karl Bode

One of the major reasons that AT&T is imposing usage caps next week (May 23) is because the company continues to face limited broadband competition. And the company faces limited competition in large part because it has been able to lobby state level governments -- for the better part of a generation -- to do everything in their power to protect AT&T from serious competition. That includes AT&T's practice of ghost writing protectionist laws in more than a dozen states prohibiting towns and cities from exploring alternative options in the face of limited competition.

In Missouri, we recently noted how AT&T tried to hinder broadband competition by convincing Representative Lyndall Fraker to bury anti-competitive language in an un-related traffic bill.