<p>The Federal Communications Commission faces charges from consumer advocates and some lawmakers that it's on the path to re-establishing a communications monopoly as it considers AT&T Inc.'s buyout of BellSouth Corp.</p><p>The FCC's OK represents the final major regulatory hurdle in AT&T's bid to extend its dominance as the nation's largest provider of phone, wireless and broadband Internet services.</p><p>The agency scheduled a special meeting for Friday to consider whether to approve the transfer of licenses needed to complete the sale and also to launch a new inquiry into the issue of "network neutrality."</p><p>When the deal originally was announced in March, it was worth about $67 billion. But the rising price of AT&T's stock had pushed the value to $80.8 billion at the close of trading Thursday.</p><p>The Justice Department approved the merger without conditions on Wednesday, a decision that was cheered by company executives but condemned by consumer advocates and two members of the FCC.</p><p>Despite the scale of the purchase, the Justice Department found no potentially adverse effects on competition.</p><p>The decision was immediately criticized by FCC member Jonathan S. Adelstein, a Democrat who called it "a reckless abandonment of DoJ's responsibility to protect competition and consumers."</p><p>Michael Copps, the commission's other Democrat, said the "Justice Department has packed its bags and walked out on consumers and small businesses by refusing to impose even a single condition in the largest telecom merger the nation has ever seen."</p><p>Copps and Adelstein were in an unusually strong position on the five-member commission, which has three Republicans. One of those GOP commissioners, Robert McDowell, was a potential tie-breaking vote who withdrew from the deliberations because he was a lobbyist who represented competitors of AT&T and BellSouth.</p><p>Republican Deborah Taylor Tate was expected to vote with Martin in favor of the acquisition.</p><p>If the deal wins final government approval, the merger would give San Antonio-based AT&T Inc. total control over the nation's largest cellular provider, Cingular Wireless, a joint venture of the two companies that serves 57.3 million customers.</p><p>Consumer advocates and some lawmakers claim the government is well on its way to reconstituting the old Ma Bell monopoly, which was broken up in 1984 after a lengthy court battle.</p><p>In addition to the merger item, the FCC will also decide whether to open an agency inquiry into broadband industry practices. The session is expected to deal with whether Internet service providers should be forced to provide equal treatment to all traffic on their networks, a contentious issue called network neutrality.</p><p>The newly expanded AT&T would have operations in 22 states. AT&T estimates that about 10,000 jobs would be phased out over three years.</p><p>Combined, the companies generate $117 billion in revenue and operate 68.7 million local phone lines stretching coast to coast across the southern United States and up through the Midwest. The merged company would employ 309,000 people before any job cuts.</p><p>The deal would further the reunification of the seven regional Bell telephone operating companies and one long-distance provider that were spun off from the national AT&T monopoly under a federal court order designed to introduce competition.</p><p>Including BellSouth, the new AT&T would consist of four former Bells and the long-distance business, which was acquired by the company late last year. The other two companies created from Bells were Verizon Communications Inc., which dominates the eastern United States, and Qwest Communications International Inc., the phone company for most of the Rocky Mountain and Northwest regions.</p><p>The vote on the sale was delayed by a day to give FCC Chairman Kevin Martin and the two Democrats on the commission a chance to negotiate conditions that would allow the deal to pass.</p><p>Past comments from Democratic commissioners Copps and Adelstein and word from people familiar with the negotiations indicate some of the remaining unresolved issues, beyond network neutrality, included "interconnection," or the right to access an incumbent telephone company's network, and a possible divestiture of some of BellSouth's wireless broadband spectrum.</p>
