AT&T official commends FCC restraint as GOP raises concerns

An AT&T official said that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has traditionally done a good job of tailoring merger conditions to address the impacts of a particular transaction.

"They've been very good at looking at proposals and determining whether there's a merger-specific angle to it and rejecting those proposals [that aren't related to the merger]," said Joan Marsh, AT&T’s vice president of federal regulatory. The comment about FCC restraint comes in spite of repeated warnings from House Commerce Committee Republicans that the FCC might add unrelated conditions to the merger in order to fulfill a policy agenda. The same members expressed concern about the Comcast merger with NBC Universal.