Verizon, on the other hand...

... just bought about $4 billion worth of spectrum from Comcast.

Why do I like this deal, after showering AT&T's takeover over of T-Mobile with so much bile?

Because Verizon's deal brings new, unused spectrum to the market, actually doing what AT&T falsely claimed their deal with T-Mobile would accomplish. Because the Verizon deal still leaves the competitors on the field, especially the scrappy one (T-Mob) known for good prices and good deals. Because, in the final look, Verizon isn't AT&T.

Did you note last week that Verizon was the one major cell phone provider that did not use the sneaky software from Carrier IQ that knows more (a lot more) about you than your mother?

There is an obvious difference between Verizon and AT&T. One is good, the other is ... well, not so good. The corporate cultures seem vastly different. It's like going into a restaurant where staff is smiling and professional and eager, versus going into one where the first words you hear are "We close in fifteen minutes." Don't you just wonder what they're doing to your burger back there in the kitchen?

AT&T just seems to be in it for themselves, ya know?

We post this to let our conservative friends understand that we are not anti-business. We like business, and we like functioning markets, where they exist. Which does not include the U.S. pharmaceutical industry or anything that travels in the same wheel rut as AT&T.

That is not to say Verizon only wears a white hat. They were astoundingly silent about the AT&T and T-Mobile deal. Verizon's execs knew even if AT&T succeeded in swallowing T-Mobile and moving past Verizon to become the largest cell provider, even being second largest would increase Verizon's bottom line in a less competitive market. That's how oligopolies work.

But being silent is not the same as openly trying to undermine market competition. Verizon bought $4 billion of spectrum and will bring it online, while AT&T was taking a $4 billion charge for likely blowing a deal with T-Mobile that was a blatant attempt to subvert market dynamics so beloved of the right wing if in name only.

AT&T is anti-business, except their own. Rep. Greg Walden is anti-business,too, except for AT&T's business which Walden conducts quite well as a mole for AT&T at the government level. He is not working for small Oregon companies that need a functioning market in which to buy phone service. But then, we don't give Rep. Walden nearly as much money as he gets from AT&T.

Verizon is the nation's leader in customer service, the leader in basic service, the leader in high speed service, and it appears that lead will continue with this recent purchase of spectrum and marketing deals with cable companies.

Google + Motorola + T-Mobile = ?

I can't be the only one thinking this.

Smart or stupid or ridiculous or common sense, someone with a lot more horsepower than me has thought of this. So why haven't I read anything about it?

Now that ATT's bid to stifle competition -- with Verizon's tacit if silent support -- has hit rough water, why doesn't Google tender a bid for T-Mobile? Say $25 billion or so? Google can afford it, and if my recently demised (not Google's fault, I dropped it corner-first to my concrete floor) Nexus S is any indication, the "pure Google" experience would draw many fans.

What a wonderfully disruptive party that could start.

I think a Google purchase of T-Mob should pass anti-trust concerns. It could increase competition in the market rather than diminish it, with Google cash shoring up T-mob's weak position. With software/hardware/network integration, it would possibly speed up the rate of innovation and lower prices across the market.

Why not? We could anticipate ATT, Verizon and Sprint would pretty much stop selling Android phones immediately. Since Google's business model has a primary strategy of market penetration, that would be a problem.

But the same argument could be made that Samsung and HTC would stop making Android phones after Google's purchase of Motorola's phone business. While that hasn't happened yet, it's still early. We also don't know what Google execs told the manufacturers to allay their concerns.

Still, it makes one smile to think of buying an Google Android phone made by Google Motorola to run on a Google T-Mobile.

I wouldn't be able to have one, though. T-Mobile reception sucks where I live in the mountains, even worse than ATT. And since I can't even have a land line ... where's my Bionic or Nexus Prime, Verizon?

Of course, now that I think about it, another contender for T-Mobile might be... oh no, it can't be ... might be ... I can't stand it ... he owns my music, his computers fill my house, he wants my TV ... oh, Mr. Jobs, please let go of my future ...

Monopolists harm America

A number of politicians (mostly Republican) have come out in support of the AT&T / T-Mobile merger. But their arguments do not make sense. Primarily, they cite benefits to America of competition in wireless before the merger. These very benefits would decrease if the merger goes through, despite false promises by AT&T.

These politicians are not in favor of the "free market." They are advocating a consolidation that would be bad for the market, and bad for America, while benefiting a monopolist in an industry where freedom is vital for economic security.

America has had to act against monopolists and oligopolies in the past. It needs to be vigilant again, and do what it must to preserve competition in the market place. Like railroads and the oil companies two centuries ago and AT&T itself in the last century, a merger between AT&T and T-Mobile would result in less innovation, higher prices, and less freedom of information. This process is common when new technologies foster a consolidation of power.

In fact, we need more communication companies in America, not fewer. We need more competition, not less. Much of the innovation in America's communications industry came after AT&T was broken up last time.

AT&T and T-Mobile both run on the GSM technology, most common in much of the world. The other two major carriers, Sprint and Verizon, run via CDMA. By allowing only one major player on the GSM side, there will be no one to challenge AT&T if a technological innovation comes to GSM.

AT&T would be the sole buyer of GSM technology in the U.S., giving it monopolist power over cell phone makers and software providers, to the detriment of consumers.

It is extremely expensive to build out a new cell network, acquire customers and put in place a cell phone company, and nearly impossible to acquire radio spectrum on which cell phones communicate.

In economics speak, the "barriers to entry" into the market are extremely high, and would be more so if dominated by a company is as well-heeled and politically powerful as AT&T.

Communications and information flow are the life blood of our nation, and becoming more critical every day. Control should not be allowed to slide toward fewer and fewer companies, especially when vertical integration may allow them to control what we see, how we see it, what we can buy and how easy it might be to find it.

It is naive to think that AT&T in that position would not use its power to fill its coffers at the expense of anyone and everyone. It would be its duty, in fact. We expect companies to make the highest profit allowable under the law.

For these reasons, government must preserve the free market in any way it can, and right now, the best way to do so is to deny the AT&T and T-mobile merger. The alternative, over the long run, is some form of regulation, which would have fewer benefits and higher cost.

If T-Mobile is to be sold, it should go to another company -- Google or Apple come to mind, though there may be issues there. Berkshire-Hathaway, perhaps. But its independence should be preserved.

In a market as difficult to foster competition as mobile communications, a market as critical to our future, America can not afford to allow monopolists to gain control.

Let’s talk about it

Confession: Yesterday I called my daughter Sabrina on her cell phone.

She was in the house. Downstairs. I was in the house. Upstairs.

All right, mea culpa. But there are a lot of stairs. The twins, 14, had their music on and their door closed. I was in a hurry and she is on my speed dial, and I use an ear piece. There is no doubt that it was faster to call than to walk downstairs, knock, wait for them to hear the knock, and tell her to come up and see the mountains as the sun rose. She is trying to paint those mountains.

Yes, I called her on her cell phone to come up and look at the view.

But then I started to think about this turn of events. Perhaps what I did is really just the squeezing of inefficiencies by technology, as technology is intended to do.

For some six months I have been among the ranks of those who no longer have a land line. Instantly I can name of four others close to me who no longer have a tether to Ma Bell or any of her children, although one of them has a land line linked to his cell phone in a way I don’t understand. In my case, I have no land link at all, since I don’t get cable or DSL. Everything is wireless by some form of technology standard, WiMax or WiFi or Bluetooth or cell.

In other words, I no longer have a phone. I have a Star Trek communicator. Instead of a hand held device or a badge on my breast like Jean Luc Picard, I have a dongle in my left ear (the hearing in the right a little dim from shotgun reports or rock and roll or the finish grind barrel at the cement plant where I worked eons ago).

And with free family to family minutes, it is more efficient and less costly to tap my left ear twice and ask my daughter to come up stairs. In the 50s and 60s there were intercoms. Stand at a box in the wall of the kitchen and talk to a bedroom. Now I tap my ear and talk to my daughter.

We are on the cusp of being able to do the same upstairs to downstairs, Hawaii to New York, with voice or image, with mass amounts of data on the internet or simply a reference to commonly accessed URL’s.

It’s not a telephone, it’s a communicator. It will soon interface the personal area network (earpiece, iPod, Bluetooth) with the local area network (my house, my printer, my computer) and the wide area network (the internet, my office, you).

And because technology puts the squeeze on inefficiency (while introducing a few of its own, ask any homebuilder watching hourly subs on their cell phones), it will replace the old methods, as surely as it is difficult now to find a typewriter.