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There’s a tidbit in the Houston Chronicle that I missed on Monday. It reveals that T-Mobile spent $1.8 million in 2007 “to lobby on Internet taxes and wireless issues.” While I’m not the biggest fan of lobbyists in general, some of what they did can be considered “good” from a relatively objective standpoint. That relates to the Internet taxes, on which there was a seven-year moratorium, set to expire in November 2007. T-Mobile spent a portion of that $1.8 million to extend that moratorium and continue to ban taxes on basic Internet content. That is good for all of us. However, that wasn’t what they spent the entire $1.8 million on.

The other portion of T-Mo’s lobbying budget went to lobbying on “wireless issues, emergency and public safety legislation and other matters.” Color me unimpressed with this disclosure. What specific wireless issues? And on what side did T-Mo lobby? Those are the questions I want answered.

The fact that it’s T-Mobile makes this an interesting scenario. Most of the time, I’d expect wireless carriers to lobby or more restrictions which would be favorable to their business specifically. However, T-Mo has incentive to not do that: They’re roughly half the size of the top carriers in America. So they have an incentive to lobby opposite Verizon and AT&T.

I guess we’ll never know the real answer. I just wouldn’t go around throwing praise at T-Mo because they spent money lobbying. Though I will praise them for helping continue the moratorium on Internet taxes.

[Houston Chronicle]

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