February 7th, 2006
Is AT&T-SBC tiff with SF newspaper really about fear of Google?
Even though I think Internet entrepreneur and savant John Battelle has way, way overhyped a Web 2.0 that doesn’t exist as an embodied, sensient force, I have a tendency to regard his observations and reportage with the utmost credibility.
That’s why my head turned when I read John’s latest Searchblog piece entitled "AT&T/SBC Plays Hardball."
John comments on the recent decision by AT&T (formerly SBC) to pull what he is told is about $5 million in annual advertising from the San Francisco Chronicle.
The reason for this decision, John’s sources inside the Chronicle tell him, is that AT&T is not too thrilled with the ‘tude of columnist David Lazarus, who writes about the company from time to time.
In one of Lazarus’ recent columns, he writes about a nearly14,000-word, fine-print laden, change of service document sent to all SBC Yahoo! broadband users.
Seeking clarification of some confusing language in the document, Lazarus notes that he initiated an online chat with an India-based SBC representative using the name "Matthew."
Lazarus didn’t say this, but it is a well-documented practice for outsourced, India-based tech support workers to use "American" names while on the job. I guess that is done to fool Americans into thinking they are dealing with a company who doesn’t outsource.
Lazarus does write that Matthew seemed quite unfamiliar with what he was asking.
Apparently, AT&T-SBC didn’t like the tone of where Lazarus was going with this. "In what appears to be retribution, SBC has pulled its ads," Battelle writes. He adds that he did call the phone company for comment, and was told that "our marketing strategy and media buying plans are proprietary."
Then, Battelle goes on to note that there are bigger forces at play then one phone company being pissed off at one columnist in one market.
The legacy SBC is a major player in the San Francisco market. It is the prime telco, and has been since it bought SF-based PacBell back in 1997. And if you go see the San Francisco Giants play, you go to SBC Park.
But, Battelle implies that SBC may indeed feel threatened. For see, if you drive a few blocks south of SBC Park, and proceed south on U.S. 101 toward Silicon Valley, you eventually get very close to a company called Google.
John knows Google. He’s written "The Search: How Google And Its Rivals Rewrote The Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture."
The same Google that wants to build a municipal Wi-Fi network in San Francisco that could well draw traffic away from AT&T-SBC.
The same Google that pushes so much bandwidth across the Internet that compels AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre to foam at the mouth about how companies such as Google should really pay a surcharge to push that content across the telco’s pipes, and to the homes of AT&T’s DSL service subscribers.
The same Google, I might add, that appears to be bulking up its Google Talk IM-centric software to include a PC to PSTN voice product that would compete with, and likely undercut, AT&T phone services in price.
The same Google, may I also add, whose fully-armed Google Talk would be carried across the pipes of its emerging telco rivals, including AT&T.
So maybe AT&T is doing this to show San Francisco who’s the boss?
Commenting on Battelle’s post, David Ulevitch (whose semi-stealth mode Internet startup Freedom Networks is backed by CNET co-founder and former CEO Halsey Minor) writes:
As rough as that might be for the SF Chronicle it is just the tip of this net neutrality iceberg — the peering wars (and shakedowns) are about to begin (again). :-)
Play ball.
To which I say, they may "play ball" at SBC Park, but as with the map at the top of this post, this is becoming a Google Earth.
Russell Shaw is an enterprise computing journalist, analyst and author based in Portland, Oregon. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
