AT&T's Dwarf Stomping in Iowa

Alec Saunders writes this morning, that he loves a good fight and chronicles the recent events of AT&T and it's tag team of steroid-puffed carriers, against an Iowa-based upstart, FreeConferenceCall.com, whose name tells you exactly what they are trying to to.

Alec provides a good narrative. As an associate of AllFreeCalls, another temporarily dormant Iowa-based company, I am well-acquainted with this  dustup of the incumbent Goliaths assaulting the agile Davids.

In one corner you have these big monoliths using the financial stockpiles they've amassed by ripping off customers who make phone calls.  On the other, you have  small companies, taking advantage of legal anomalies to give people the same quality phone service at either extremely low price or no  price at all.

The Goliaths use their traditional weapons of litigation and legislation. They use the litigation to pin the little guys down onto the mats long enough to get legislation that will ban what is currently legal and in the public interest.

In the long run, new companies offering new services at better prices may win, because they are more agile and because they are real crowd pleasers once the crowd sees them in action.

But in these early rounds, it looks like AT&T is having it's way,using these weapons to crush, mutilate and destroy. Sometimes they succeed.  Sometimes they don't.

In the case of AT&T and those in their corner, it may be a longer, bloodier fight than they think.

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