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ATT=XXX?
 While I criticized AT&T for a policy which reportedly will allow greater latitude in allowing audio material with sexual content on their '900' network,
(OTE 5/00: Eating The Seed
Corn) I have to give them credit for formulating a consistent policy. According to the Wall Street Journal, 5/31/00, p. B16: "AT&T Corp plans to carry The Hot Network, a hard-core adult movie channel, in a programming deal that could leave AT&T with a big share of profits from sexually explicit movies." While such a strategy may be profitable, it won't help in 2001 when it's time to renegotiate 900 billing agreements with all of the local exchange carriers (LECs). That is, unless AT&T controls the billing relationship with the telephone subscriber. Almost a decade ago, AT&T made a push to 'take back 80% of business billing, and 20% of residential billing', but failed miserably. This time they seem to be counting on their Project Angel for
salvation.' Angel' is a means of delivering fixed wireless directly to the home, quietly being developed by AT&T engineers since 1997. (Wireless Week 3/27/00, p.1) The company's plan is to be able to provide local phone service to a majority of
 households via cable, fixed wireless, and by re-selling local phone services. It's a grand plan, but by mid-year, AT&T has been able to install only 100,000 fixed wireless users against a goal of 400,000 for the year. So much for the strategy. A critique of their tactics comes from Thomas Nolle, writing in Network World, 6/19/00, p. 71 (www.nwfusion.com). According to his experience, AT&T had a contractor impersonate AT&T representatives to inform AT&T long distance customers that their regional toll service had been 'slammed' away from AT&T (when in fact, AT&T had never been the carrier for the regional service). Mr. Nolle, president of CIMI Corp, a technology assessment firm, is a little bit more savvy in these matters than the average telephone consumer. Who knows how many other companies were effected, and how long will telecommunications carriers be able to get away with ordering 'hits' through a contractor?
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