SBC’s Ed Whitacre complains about companies using his network to make money

In 2005, Ed Whitacre, CEO of SBC, complained to BusinessWeek about companies like Google and Vonage. “Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain’t going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it.” Although Google, Vonage, and their customers were paying for broadband access, Whitacre apparently wanted those companies to pay an extra toll for using the network to make even more money for SBC.

In 2006, AT&T pledged to maintain a “neutral network” in exchange for U.S. government approval of its proposed acquisition of BellSouth.