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 LAS VEGAS (AP) - Ed Whitacre Jr., the chief executive of AT&T Inc., dismissed critics who say its planned merger with BellSouth Corp. will form a near-monopoly for Internet access and give it the clout to dictate terms to Web sites if they want to remain reachable.
At issue is the current principle of "network neutrality," under which all traffic is treated equally on the Internet. The major Internet carriers, with AT&T in the fore, want to be able to provide different tiers of service, giving higher priority to, for instance, Internet phone calls, which could improve their quality.
At the TelecomNEXT telecommunications conference in Las Vegas on Tuesday, Whitacre rejected the notion that this would harm the sites and companies that don't pay for premium service.
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