AT&T's Net Neutrality Gaffe Speaks Volumes About Its Corporate Culture

Is there a fine line between “rallying the troops” and “astroturfing?”

Well, if there is, AT&T (T) will be our case study for the day, after an internal email–asking employees to oppose net neutrality–has surfaced.

It appears that proponents of net neutrality–and AT&T’s detractors–have jumped on a single line of the wordy memo:

We encourage you, your family and friends to join the voices telling the FCC not to regulate the Internet. It can be done through a personal email account by going to www.openinternet.gov and clicking on the “Join the Discussion” link.

The “done through a personal email account” part has been translated into “hide the fact that you are an AT&T employee” by many bloggers.

Others have jumped on the fact that AT&T is feeding soundbites to its thousands of employees–turning them into citizen-shills for the company.

Of course, AT&T’s not going to find many sympathetic bloggers–pretty much all are in favor of net neutrality–so it’s somewhat unfair to suggest that AT&T is doing something sinister. But, it does serve as a warning for those engaged in any kind of reputation management campaign. Time and time again I caution companies that even in “battle” they have to be ready for the consequences of their actions. Secret, internal emails ALWAYS leak out onto the web.

And, let’s be honest AT&T. You should already have built a culture that encourages brand evangelists within your company. Your employees should already be delighted to work for you, and they should already have a desire to promote and defend your company’s stance on many subjects–including net neutrality. The fact that you’ve felt compelled to send out this memo, suggests that you have deeper problems with your employee’s moral and happiness.

Want to improve your company’s external reputation? Focus first on building the reputation you have with your employees!

Comments

[CatsJam:]

It is definitely a problem if AT&T only has one employee with one moral..... ;-)

Oct 21 05:19 PM

[calixtus:]

Not sure I'd call it a "gaffe"... How many of the bloggers the article refers to have encouraged their readers to take similar action in favor of their stance? But because AT&T will gain financially, it is somehow sleazier than what the "impartial" bloggers do? It seems like the only thing AT&T is being criticized for here is that their employees have a plurality of viewpoints. Not exactly shocking in a company of nearly 300,000.

Oct 21 05:37 PM

[nattyzed:]

AT&T is not alone. Pretty much every significantly sized company sends communications to its employees recommending ways they can protect their business. People care about what impacts them and their families. Employment and their employers well-being ranks pretty high on that list for most of us.

Oct 21 05:39 PM

[slash32is4:]

every company does that its because employees dont know whats happening half the time id assume u knew that but u just want to bash AT&T... let the FCC do it n lets see how this works like how the gov wanted banks to lend money to people that couldnt afford it or how they are going to ruin the country with health care....

Oct 21 05:56 PM

[BrooklyBridge:]

This is shear nonsense. ATT has a right to tell its employees that net neutrality will adversely affect the company and, in effect, all employees. Employees are under no obligation to contact the FCC but can do so if they choose. Let's talk about the Obama administration mugging any organization that criticizes any of their proposed policies. Where is free speech in America under Obama???

Oct 21 06:22 PM

[sotxbill:]

Must be a really slow news day if your trying to invent news..
Yes there are some that want net nutrality. They want the net frozen. No new technolgy allowed. Keep the 1960s protocols that do not allow real time data. The protocols that were designed to transfer simply files on 9600 baud circuits that connected to 2400 buad circuits and that drops loads of packets and required tons of retransmits and work well but slowly. Email is udp meaing that it was considered ok to loose a bit of data here and there, so if an email came in with a letter missing, no one cared.
Google has lead the battle to freeze technology and congestion so that their search engines will be more valuable.
But what about qos, mpls, so we can do real time voice, and video. How bout we watch hd tv on every computer. Net Netrality will prevent this. YES it will make it illegal to offer new advance services that must have qos or mpls. Googl spread the fear that if any carrier were to build an overlay that provided realtime services, that they would then kill off the non realtime. An arguement that says I sell a network that allows tv, video and voice, I wont allow my customers to transfer files??? I guess the customers would really come running???

COME ON!!!!!!! Look at what virtually all private corporate networks have already had to do. To pass time sensitive data, like VOIP, and VIDEO CONFEREINCING, and yes cable TV services have all upgraded their networks. It the silly supertision that keeps our customers from being able to use the internet and force them to buy PRIVATE mpls circuits from carriers like verizon, att, and qwest. Follow the money. Who really makes money by freezing the network in the name of net neutrality. Who comes out ahead by delaying future technology and delaying it till they catch up with the incombant provides. Who demanded the 700MHZ spectum have a clause for open access but refused to bid and pay thier fair share for spectrum. Who benifits if the ip providers have to unbundle. Yes,, Google and their android will force its way into to everyones business. Yes, lets kill the ONLY horse thats pulling the plow in the name of fairness. Then google will step in. Unbundling the copper networks sent all american technology overseas and kill off the traditional phone companies. When they had to sell their copper networks at a loss, so that the new companies could come in with no cable, no repair, no engineering, no property. Not a one of these companies came in and built a network like the fcc wanted. The just simply suck out profit with no benefit to the customer. And dont EVEN talk about the rural networks where the costs are phenominal to begin with. How many rurual cable companies are there serving farms and true rural areas. Every time we get a new administration and new fcc folks, they start all over again making the same mistakes. The give them 4 to 8 years and they then start to realize that if you provide rules that encourage investment, you get it. If pass rules and restrictions for little guys, you send business overseas, jobs overseas, and the little guys you artificially created, have NO technolgy, no growth and end up selling out as there are simple too many people in the business to make any money. How many times do we repeat this. Our overseas companies just love us. We have kill off bell labs, western electric, lucent, avaya, nortel, to the point that there is NO manufactoring and reseach left here.

Great Job guys,, lets freeze the internet to the 1960s technolgy.

Lets see.. next we can talk about the great sucess of municipal wifi.. Another government sucess story right there with social security and soon to me government health care. Someone please show me a government sucess story.. Somewhere?? Somehow?? The government (fcc) talks about how far the internet has come with no regulation and now they are going to regulate it and wireless...

Great, now we have sprint, att, verizon all fighting for the next technology, the next handset. They are giving us 500 and 600 dollar handsets for a contract. Lets unbundle and let all the little guys get a piece of the action. Handsets will go to $600, 4g will never see the light of day. The little guys will not invest a penny in the network. And verizon, T, Sprint, Tmobile will go belly up or let the networks drift.. Google will invent some new search engine to find you a line that actuall works and give dial tone, and make a fortune.

And you are upset because at&t put out a letter to its employees telling them about proposed legislation and telling them to comment ?? They did not say how to comment, just commet. Are you against voting as well. att puts out letters telling their employees to vote, to give to united way, to do voluteer work in the community, and other worthwhile causes. Did you ride the small bus to school???

Oct 21 09:01 PM

[sotxbill:]

Retired Communications Engineer, & Networking Engineer. I dont spell check and dont care. I have broke about everything that could be broke and fixed some of it. Sadly somethings cant be fixed once broken. Its sad that mankind is destined to make the same mistakes over and over again.

Oct 21 09:11 PM

[sotxbill:]

Retired Communications Engineer, & Networking Engineer. I dont spell check and dont care. I have broke about everything that could be broke and fixed some of it. Sadly somethings cant be fixed once broken. Its sad that mankind is destined to make the same mistakes over and over again.

Oct 21 09:11 PM

[BeenThereBu...:]

"Net Neutrality" is a fine buzzword and a terrible idea. If imposed, it will let the bandwidth parasites, who want everyone else to pay for the network, continue to dominate. AT&T is right to oppose it, and there's nothing wrong with asking employees to help. AT&T has long had a "culture that encourages brand evangelists within" the company.

Unfortunately, companies and employees are seldom loyal to one another these days. The companies practice layoffs, outsourcing, offshoring, and cutting employee benefits, all in the name of shareholder profits, executive bonuses, and competition. Meanwhile they expect more and more, while providing less and less. What was once a great company becomes a veritable sweatshop. Sadly, AT&T fits the above scenario. Its hard to find "brand evangelists" for the USA when you send many of your best-paying jobs to India and Israel via Amdocs.

Oct 21 11:12 PM

[JAMES CARLINI:]

Monopoly? Or competitive market leader? You cannot have it both ways when it suits your business model.

If AT&T wants to keep its competitors out in a quasi-monopolistic approach - GREAT! BUT - Invest in the network so that it is superior to EVERYTHING out there (like it used to be).

Verizon has a better business model and most analysts cannot see that. (HINT to the analysts out there - Fiber to the premise (FTTP) is a superior approach than copper or copper/fiber (U-verse) hybrid networks to the premise. Wireless (with huge bandwidth and backhaul) will also obsolete copper and copper/fiber-hybrid networks.

Oct 22 08:07 AM

[RCharles:]

On Oct 21 09:01 PM sotxbill wrote:

> Must be a really slow news day if your trying to invent news..<br/>Yes
> there are some that want net nutrality. They want the net frozen.

Net Neutrality has NO impact on network technology; it merely says that an ISP has to give every customer unfettered access to the entire internet and any network management must be applied universally.

> No new technolgy allowed. Keep the 1960s protocols that do not allow real time data. The protocols that were designed to transfer simply
> files on 9600 baud circuits that connected to 2400 buad circuits
> and that drops loads of packets and required tons of retransmits
> and work well but slowly. Email is udp meaing that it was considered ok to loose a bit of data here and there, so if an email came in with a letter missing, no one cared. Google has lead the battle to freeze technology and congestion so that their search engines will be more valuable. But what about qos, mpls, so we can do real time voice, and video. How bout we watch hd tv on every computer. Net Netrality will prevent this. YES it will make it illegal to offer new advance services that
> must have qos or mpls. Googl spread the fear that if any carrier
> were to build an overlay that provided realtime services, that they
> would then kill off the non realtime. An arguement that says I sell
> a network that allows tv, video and voice, I wont allow my customers
> to transfer files??? I guess the customers would really come running???
>
>
> COME ON!!!!!!! Look at what virtually all private corporate networks
> have already had to do. To pass time sensitive data, like VOIP,
> and VIDEO CONFEREINCING, and yes cable TV services have all upgraded
> their networks. It the silly supertision that keeps our customers
> from being able to use the internet and force them to buy PRIVATE
> mpls circuits from carriers like verizon, att, and qwest. Follow
> the money. Who really makes money by freezing the network in the name of net neutrality. Who comes out ahead by delaying future technology
> and delaying it till they catch up with the incombant provides.
> Who demanded the 700MHZ spectum have a clause for open access but
> refused to bid and pay thier fair share for spectrum. Who benifits
> if the ip providers have to unbundle. Yes,, Google and their android
> will force its way into to everyones business. Yes, lets kill the
> ONLY horse thats pulling the plow in the name of fairness. Then
> google will step in. Unbundling the copper networks sent all american technology overseas and kill off the traditional phone companies. When they had to sell their copper networks at a loss, so that the
> new companies could come in with no cable, no repair, no engineering,
> no property. Not a one of these companies came in and built a network
> like the fcc wanted. The just simply suck out profit with no benefit
> to the customer. And dont EVEN talk about the rural networks where
> the costs are phenominal to begin with. How many rurual cable companies
> are there serving farms and true rural areas. Every time we get
> a new administration and new fcc folks, they start all over again
> making the same mistakes. The give them 4 to 8 years and they then
> start to realize that if you provide rules that encourage investment,
> you get it. If pass rules and restrictions for little guys, you
> send business overseas, jobs overseas, and the little guys you artificially
> created, have NO technolgy, no growth and end up selling out as there
> are simple too many people in the business to make any money. How
> many times do we repeat this. Our overseas companies just love us.
> We have kill off bell labs, western electric, lucent, avaya,

Bell Labs, Western Electric, Lucent and Avaya are all remnants or new compaines coming out of the old Bell System, the old ATT that was convicted of abusing it's monopoly. The new ATT (nee SWBT) has similar monopoly tendencies and will screw the end user if left un-regulated. Until every customer has a choice of at least two and preferably three broadband providers, we MUST have regulation including Net Neutrality.

nortel,
> to the point that there is NO manufactoring and reseach left here.
>
>
> Great Job guys,, lets freeze the internet to the 1960s technolgy.
>
>
> Lets see.. next we can talk about the great sucess of municipal wifi..
> Another government sucess story right there with social security
> and soon to me government health care. Someone please show me a
> government sucess story.. Somewhere?? Somehow?? The government (fcc) talks about how far the internet has come with no regulation and now they are going to regulate it and wireless...

You are confused. the internet reached it's current level of operation under a Net Neutrality environment; the FCC regulations merely enforce that as a continuing requirement. Net Neutrality makes no additional demands on network operation, it just prevents the ISPs from abusing their position as providers by providing better service to either in-house applications (pay-per-view) or others who pay a premium.
>
> Great, now we have sprint, att, verizon all fighting for the next
> technology, the next handset. They are giving us 500 and 600 dollar
> handsets for a contract. Lets unbundle and let all the little guys
> get a piece of the action. Handsets will go to $600, 4g will never
> see the light of day. The little guys will not invest a penny in
> the network. And verizon, T, Sprint, Tmobile will go belly up or
> let the networks drift.. Google will invent some new search engine
> to find you a line that actuall works and give dial tone, and make
> a fortune.
>
> And you are upset because at&amp;t put out a letter to its employees
> telling them about proposed legislation and telling them to comment
> ?? They did not say how to comment, just commet. Are you against
> voting as well. att puts out letters telling their employees to
> vote, to give to united way, to do voluteer work in the community,
> and other worthwhile causes. Did you ride the small bus to school???

Actually, I am not concerned with the ATT email because that company has thousands of technicians who understand Net Neutrality and will overwhelmingly support the regulations.

Oct 22 03:35 PM