@jbtaylor on tech

I can't make this up.

Today the Louisiana Ballooning Foundation endorsed AT&T's bid to takeover T-Mobile in a letter to the FCC. They would like 4G in Baton Rouge and they also would like the new jobs AT&T has promised with this proposed transaction.

Of course, what to do you see when you go to the Foundation's home page? An AT&T logo of course. AT&T sponsors the Foundation's annual Pennington Balloon Championship.

I wonder if the Foundation has position on the debt ceiling or the war in Iraq.

Earlier this week, the Louisiana Public Service Commission voted 4-1 to open a regulatory docket to review AT&T's bid to takeover T-Mobile.

In an interview with Bloomberg News, Louisiana Public Commissioner Foster Campbell said, "It’s too big a deal to let it go through without getting everybody’s questions answered, and making sure this is a good deal for the consumer."

AT&T for its part, argued unsuccessfully against such a review.

Of course this is a pattern with AT&T. Their lobbyists are working overtime to convince state regulators that they shouldn't weigh in. They don't want anyone to ask them any questions.

The action isn't limited to Louisiana, though.

Today Sprint filed documents in San Francisco calling on the California Public Utility Commission to open an investigation into the transaction. We also responded in West Virginia to AT&T's ridiculous assertion that we had no right to call for a hearing there because we don't operate a 4G network in the state. (They also criticized Sprint because our workers have not chosen to affiliate with a union.)

We said in part that West Virginia regulators “should not be distracted by the sideshow AT&T has presented.”

Our filing went on to say that we think that the proceeding in West Virginia is not about Sprint, but that it, "is about consumers, innovation, competition and the future of the wireless market in West Virginia,”

p.s. The photo of this post is one I took in New Orleans last year in Jackson Square. You can just make out the statue of Andrew Jackson, the hero of the Battle of New Orleans and a former President of the U.S. Jackson was a president who believed in listening to the public. He once famously said, "You are a den of vipers and theives. I intend to rout you out, and by eternal God, I will rout you out."

For the record, he was not referring to AT&T as the company had not yet been formed. His remarks were aimed at those seeking to establish a banking monopoly. I can only imagine what Jackson would think about AT&T's bid to takeover T-Mobile -- for that matter, cell phones in general.