BT also employ lobbiests, and there's regular controversy in the industry over ofcom not regulating them hard enough, or in why exactly they won the original 2010 era rural fibre contracts but overall I guess they simply don't work as hard as thier ATT counterparts;)

> I guess they simply don't work as hard as thier ATT counterparts;)

Since at least the 1950s, AT&T has been so tightly tied to US Gov+NatSec, it's practically another agency.

To illustrate that: AT&T once faced a lawsuit for aiding US Gov's unconstitutional, warrantless wiretapping (also for cloning backbone traffic for the NSA).

When Congress presented a bill to grant retroactive immunity to AT&T, both Obama and Clinton paused their presidential campaigns. They flew back to DC to cast their Yea votes and protect AT&T from any possible accountability.

US news orgs weren't able to spot anything out of the ordinary in that.

> When Congress presented a bill to grant retroactive immunity to AT&T, both Obama and Clinton paused their presidential campaigns. They flew back to DC to cast their Yea votes and protect AT&T from any possible accountability.

Your facts are a little scrambled: are you referring to 2008 [0] or 2012 [1][2] or both? I guess you meant 2008 because both Hillary and Obama were running for President; but Hillary was absent from the 2/12/2008 vote, [2] claims Obama voted against it. I located the bill: [3] "S.2248 - FISA Amendments Act of 2008" and that Senate vote record from 2/12/2008, although it says "Clinton (D-NY), Not Voting", "Obama (D-IL), Not Voting"(?). You'd expect journalists to get important facts right. Meanwhile US media barely covered that vote.

[0] 2/2008 "Telecom immunity remains intact as Democrats split on vote" "Obama voted with 30 fellow Democrat Senators, but not the absent Hillary Clinton, to allow the telecom companies to face lawsuits... on the [Bush] admin's programme of warrantless wiretapping. But the immunity survived, with 18 Democrats crossing over to support George Bush." https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2008/feb/12/terrorism.u...

[1] "US Supreme Court finalizes gift of immunity to the telecom giants" - Glenn Greenwald https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/10/suprem...

[2] TheAtlantic: "The Supreme Court Isn't Bothered By the NSA’s Warrantless Wiretapping" ... "refused to hear a case that holds telecom companies accountable for letting the warrantless NSA spying" https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/10/supreme...

[3]: 02/12/2008 "S.2248 - FISA Amendments Act of 2008", click through on "14 roll call votes" https://www.congress.gov/bill/110th-congress/senate-bill/224...

Look on the bright side, the AT&T logo already looks like the eye-in-the-sky. Or the Death Star. Hardly needs any reworking.

> Your facts are a little scrambled

Mostly not. Hillary did vote against the bill so thank you for clarifying that.

> are you referring to 2008 or 2012

2008 because Clinton campaign + Obama campaign + AT&T Amnesty bill.

No, your facts are very scrambled, you were incorrect about the 2/12/2008 vote that passed it 68-29-3, there were 14 roll-call votes on that bill, not one. Saying "Hillary did vote against the bill" is totally wrong about the 2/12/2008 vote; congress.gov says both Hillary and Obama weren't present or voted present (as did Lindsey Graham). The claim "They flew back [from campaigning] to DC to cast their Yea votes and protect AT&T from any possible accountability." was wrong. I even dug up the exact bill and the timeline of all 14 votes for you:

[3]: 02/12/2008 "S.2248 - FISA Amendments Act of 2008", click through on "14 roll call votes" https://www.congress.gov/bill/110th-congress/senate-bill/224...

I believe it. Verizon have a fairly extensive backbone in England and Scotland, all their own duct and chambers yet it's impossible to buy wholesale service from them, even if you're big. I wonder what it's used for :')