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Nearly a month into the pleading cycle for AT&T's proposed merger with BellSouth, few parties have filed critical comments with the FCC regarding the matter, the agency's records show.

AT&T filed an application with the FCC to transfer control of all of BellSouth's licenses to itself on March 31st, 2006. The FCC launched a period of public comment on the proposal on April 19th. FCC Chair Kevin Martin pledged that the Commission would examine "any allegations of specific harm in individual markets" caused by the joining of the two telephone companies.

Some analysts estimate that the union will result in a company that services almost half of all telephone land lines in the U.S. Yet the majority of publicly filed documents so far come from AT&T and BellSouth, extolling the benefits of the merger.

Since AT&T and BellSouth filed to combine, both firms have been rocked by revelations that they sold the National Security Agency the records of billions of phone calls made by U.S. citizens within the United States. Even before then news reports revealed that AT&T had been cooperating with President Bush's controversial warrentless wiretapping program.

President Bush insists that the government's actions are legal. The Electronic Freedom Foundation has filed a class action lawsuit against AT&T, demanding that it stop providing the government customer data unless the corporation receives warrants.

Statements in opposition

Beyond sixteen form letters sent by individuals, two oppositional filings have come from Competitive Local Exchange Carriers (C-LECS), which often depend on connectivity with big outfits like AT&T for survival.

"God knows that small C-LECS like Aspire Telecom, Inc., already face nearly insurmountable competition from the mega phone companies out there now," the firm wrote to the FCC on March 13th, even before the comment cycle was launched. "Allowing SBC, now known as AT&T, to acquire BellSouth is counterproductive to the very acts that you have enacted to foster competition."

Fones4All, a Southern California firm that provides Universal Service Fund (USF) subsidized service for low income Californians, filed a statement on May 9th charging that AT&T has withheld millions of dollars in "reciprocal compensation payments" that the company says it is owed.

"As the Commission considers the merger of AT&T and BellSouth," Fones4All writes, "it must bear in mind that the ability of the merged company to undertake anticompetitive actions against other very small companies, like the actions AT&T is now taking against Fones4All, will only grow if the merger is approved."

Meanwhile AT&T and BellSouth have filled the FCC proceeding docket with supportive declarations and statements of public interest.

In contrast to the lightly trafficked AT&T/BellSouth merger pleading cycle, the public has filed over 17621 comments on the FCC's proposed changes in media ownership limits, albeit over a period of four years.

Groups and individuals who want to file a statement on the proposed AT&T/BellSouth merger can do so via the FCC's comment form. The proceeding docket number for the matter is 06-74. The public has until June 5th to file a comment or petition to deny, and then until June 20th to respond to other comments.