Remember: We Love This Merger

Reporters on a conference call hosted by the AT&T-backed Internet Innovation Alliance got an earful about how rural America could benefit from more access to high-speed Internet. But representatives from some of the featured groups needed a little help remembering to promote AT&T's proposed merger with T-Mobile as the best way to provide more broadband.

Leaders from diverse groups like the Alabama Rural Health Association and the Center for Business, Education and Arts in Kanab, Utah, described at length how the Internet can improve life in the backwoods of America. But at the end of at least two speeches, IIA's honorary chair, former Rep Rick Boucher had to jump in and remind the speakers to put in a plug for the controversial merger.