Someone is a bit upset over not getting his way 100% of the time. He should consider himself lucky since AT&T and the rest of that industry enjoys a privileged position with very little competition. The end result is poor products that could never compete abroad due to the low price/quality ratio.
Just imagine with the US mobile and internet services would be like if this industry spent money on improving their technology rather than lobbying or influencing politics. AT&T's iPhone business was about as anti-capitalist as it comes yet they got away with that nonsense for years. AT&T recently made some modifications to their iPhone locking system, but sheesh, welcome to 2009 in Europe. Their business practices still are closer to behaving like a trust than anything that resembles capitalism.
Yes, he made a few million less because the AT&T merger deal was rejected but what about the country as a whole? Why does it always have to be "me, me, me" for these people? Big business and management gone wild.
AT&T Inc. (T) Chairman Randall Stephenson lost $2.08 million in bonus pay after Democrats killed his bid to build the biggest mobile provider. Six weeks after the deal collapsed, he made his largest campaign donation in more than two decades of giving to Republicans.Lobbying is not always bad and for a business it makes sense but as they say, all things within reason. People like Stephenson really need a serious dose of competition and actual capitalism. AT&T would struggle in that environment and people like Stephenson would be lost, so they simply dump cash into the political system.
Stephenson’s $30,800 contribution to the Republican National Committee punctuated months of sniping between the biggest U.S. telephone company and the Democratic-controlled Federal Communications Commission.
Stephenson and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, a Democrat, have disagreed over spectrum policies and whether killing AT&T’s proposed $39 billion merger with T-Mobile USA Inc. led to price increases.
