AT&T Promised Lower Prices After Time Warner Merger -- It's Raising Them Instead (arstechnica.com) 192
Less than a month after AT&T completed its $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner, the company is raising the base price of its DirecTV Now streaming service by $5 per month. This comes after promising in court that its acquisition would lover TV prices. Ars Technica reports: AT&T confirmed the price increase to Ars and said it began informing customers of the increase this past weekend. "The $5 increase will go into effect July 26 for new customers and varies for existing customers based on their billing date," an AT&T spokesperson said. The $5 increase will affect all DirecTV Now tiers except for a Spanish-language TV package, AT&T told Ars. That means the DirecTV Now packages that currently cost $35, $50, $60, and $70 a month will go up to $40, $55, $65, and $75. "To continue delivering the best possible streaming experience for both new and existing customers, we're bringing the cost of this service in line with the market -- which starts at a $40 price point," AT&T said.
In a court filing, trying to convince the Justice Department that its acquisition would be good for consumers, AT&T had this to say: "The evidence overwhelmingly showed that this merger is likely to enhance competition substantially, because it will enable the merged company to reduce prices, offer innovative video products, and compete more effectively against the increasingly powerful, vertically integrated 'FAANG' [Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google] companies," AT&T told U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in the brief.
In a court filing, trying to convince the Justice Department that its acquisition would be good for consumers, AT&T had this to say: "The evidence overwhelmingly showed that this merger is likely to enhance competition substantially, because it will enable the merged company to reduce prices, offer innovative video products, and compete more effectively against the increasingly powerful, vertically integrated 'FAANG' [Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google] companies," AT&T told U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in the brief.
It can't be (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm in total shock. Who could have possibly seen this coming?
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Trump tried to stop it
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No he didn't, he's a retard who blathered something once.
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AT&T lied, and that's news? I knew they'd raise prices, but I figured they'd wait a little bit longer to do it just to keep from being so damned obvious about their lying.
Actually on the other hand, AT&T may try to advertise it a different way. If the base price is now $5 higher for new customer, it is then become the current base price. Existing customers now have the "lower" price because of the base price is higher than what they are paying; thus, it is a discount for existing customers. Not that I agree with the lie, but this is how corporations could spin their way through. I wish that the court could reverse the approval.
Re: It can't be (Score:5, Insightful)
Hell, I own stock/get AT&T dividends, and not even I'm buying that crap.
Re: It can't be (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: It can't be (Score:5, Informative)
Most countries solve this with "local loop unbundling". Basically the company that owns the phone lines and telephone exchanges has to offer access to other companies for the same price it charges itself. Other companies can install their own hardware at the local exchange (an ADSL DSLAM box) and offer internet service to anyone who wants it.
It's not perfect because the company that owns the lines tends to be really really shit at maintaining them, but at least you have a choice of ISPs.
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My recollection is that there used to be hundreds of little ISPs that served the Internet up over dial-up phone lines. Over time of course the state of the art became DSL, coax cable and fiber. The broadband infrastructure is and was always owned by a variety of big companies. But the bottom line is that for one reason or the other all the small ISPs have been bought up by the big players, the Bells have been remerged into AT&T due to deregulation, and there has been considerable consolidation in the cable space, leaving most consumers without a lot of choice. AT&T in the summary essentially parrots this. No one is doubting that there is regulation, but I would need to see something more than your post to draw any conclusions about whether lots of regulation keeps little guys from starting ISP businesses or if it's really just the big companies being anti-competitive. Certainly there used to be lots of little ISPs but perhaps the landscape has shifted to much more regulation in the last 15 years? By all means, back up your post with some substance.
Dude, come on, you're totally fucking up his narrative!
Re: It can't be (Score:5, Insightful)
If you think right of way is hard now, try doing it without government, that is, by negotiating individually with each and every property owner in the area you intend to serve.
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The parent makes a good point, and one I was going to make. Simply put one of the reasons AT&T didn't want to upgrade their lines was they didn't like others providing DSL. Now the lines are on public easements and AT&T probably even got subsidies and such to put a lot of them in.
Even now countless AT&T customers are without any form of hard wired broadband and this is well after the court case you mentioned. Simply put companies like AT&T only do what is profitable, and then only in the
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Make all US internet into one big utility cooperative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] ?
Connect all the cooperatives and span the USA?
That would be some neat deregulation and removal of all federal rules and no more NN rules.
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You're such a NN hater.
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Is anyone a fan of paper insulated wireline as a network for everyone under federal NN rules?
Well instead of an esoteric statement in a cryptic response, you could provide a link to the legislation/bill and explain what you are talking about. Or you could simply not respond and maintain your air of inaccessible knowledge.
Is explaining your point of view beneath you or are you incapable of doing so?
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Guess who owns all the people who make the regulations? AT&T.
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Not that I think you're wrong, but it will never happen, because AT&T won't let it happen. Guess who owns all the people who make the regulations? AT&T.
But, I thought it was the "Left"!
Re: It can't be (Score:5, Interesting)
Wrong. Free markets evolve towards consolidation [hbr.org] and the only thing that prevents that is government regulation.
Do you think it is a coincidence that all mature markets are highly consolidated? The oligopolies you speak of are the (crappy) compromises of the free market desire for monopolies and the people's desires for perfect competition.
Another topic herein is the concept of 'cartel forming'. It's a dirty term, even for libertarians, yet it is utterly rational behavior from the perspective of the companies involved. In fact, in other areas of life, we would use words like 'alliance' and 'cooperation' to characterize the behavior. Buying up competing companies or trampling them is equally rational from the perspective of the companies and thus that is exactly what they will do, given the opportunity.
The takeaway here is that the concept of an unrestricted free market fundamentally stabilizes on a highly undesirable state of affairs from a societal point of view.
Now, having established that, finding a good way to deal with it is hard. Asking companies to 'take their responsibility', semirandomly blasting them with huge antitrust fines or breaking up companies above a certain size seem like terrible workarounds to me. One of the more creative ideas I've come across is taxing companies progressively based on their dominance in their respective market(s), but that too seems far from flawless.
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Breaking up the Bell monopoly was a pointless exercise, because the way it was done simply created a bunch of regional monopolies with no competition between them. Nobody movies to another state to get a lower price on their telephone / TV / internet. We got all the disadvantages of Ma Bell, with additional inefficiencies added.
Re: It can't be (Score:4, Informative)
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I'm a liberal. I believe that monopolies need to be broken in a way that creates real competition, or if that's not practical with some natural monopolies then the business should become a non-profit state utility. Forcing them to lease lines to competitors at cost is one strategy that's been used. But simply breaking a national monopoly into regional monopolies does nothing in itself.
The breakup of Ma Bell was good for long distance call competition, but did nothing for local service which remained under m
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Way to show your open mindedness.
I'm sure you'll just cuss at me about how some things (which in reality is probably a ton of things for you) don't need someone to be open minded.
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This shows how little you think of the working class.
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Free markets end up with one or two big players who try for monopoly. When they can't buy out each other, they for a cartel. The cartel breaks down because one of the players will invariably offer a discount and violate the gentlemen's agreement. It is at this point the cartel breaks down (and prices fall) or the cartel members ask for government regulation to control the price of their collective product. The trick is to accept that prices will rise and fall in a cyclic manner as cartels form and fall
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When they can't buy out each other, they for a cartel.
Sometimes, maybe. Intel and AMD do not seem to be in a cartel, nor do Nvidia and AMD.
The cartel breaks down because one of the players will invariably offer a discount and violate the gentlemen's agreement.
Nonsense. That may happen sometimes, but usually the cartels exist for years and years until they slip up or one of the cartel partners rats out the entire deal in hopes of getting out of it ahead. In any case, the punishment is administered through government regulations -- i.e. antitrust fines.
It's the only deterrent, really. Without antitrust laws we'd see cartels everywhere. Just look at the OPEC, which is effectively a
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You're giving the New Deal, an extreme set of measures in an extreme financial crisis, as an example of 'cartel members ask for government regulation to control the price of their collective product' and implying that this is the normal order of business? Really?
Also, don't forget that the whole bit was:
Cartels form -> one cartel member breaks rank -> cartel breaks down -> cartel members ask for government regulation to control prices.
The latter is not the same as 'company in some industry lobbies
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The amazing thing is that this insight (that free markets get overrun by monopolies) is literally as old as Adam Smith - yet we're still arguing about this shit.
Re: It can't be (Score:5, Interesting)
The Democrats, feckless as they may be, are the opposition against the slide into plutocracy and oligarchy. To call them out shows that you are a committed fascist.
Why don't you get the hell out of my country and live in Russia under Putin? He embodies the corrupt centralization of power that you endorse. Your would fit right in.
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I'm a Republican/Libertarian and I wanted the companies to be allowed to fail
You do realize that the consequences of that would have been much, much worse? The combination of essential bank services and gambling with complex financial products in the same companies ensured that. Guess what is required to prevent that combination from existing? Government regulation.
Also, screw your undertone of the entire thing not being libertarian enough. Think about having utterly consolidated utility markets and 'allowing the companies to fail'. No drinking water until some other private company
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You said: "The bailouts were the problem."
That is putting blame on government intervention, even though (we apparently agree that) not bailing out the banks at that point would have been much, much worse. Calling the very necessary bailouts 'the problem' is misleading at best.
If you had said 'The fact that bailouts were necessary was the problem', I could have agreed with you.
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So what should have been done, exactly?
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You are a financial genius.
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The government let this merger happen. That is the opposite of regulation. Of course, in the bizarro world of libertarians, government not stopping a merger is somehow another government regulation.
Yes the government needing to approve something in order for it to get done would be considered regulation. I guess in your bizarro world, it's only a regulation if the government says no to a request.
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If they approve something, it's regulation. If they don't approve something, it's also regulation. If one action is EXACTLY the same as taking no action, then how is it a regulation?
Are libertarians as severely as cognitive dissonant as you?
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Did you read the response I replied to or did you someone skip directly to my reply?
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Telecom is not one of the markets being held down by regulation, though. I see a constant flow of innovation. The problem is a dearth of competition in the last mile.
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Wrong. Other ISPs can't even reach the last mile due to local regulations/deals
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I’m distinguishing between regulations affecting communications as a whole and municipal permits, which are the impediments often controlled by existing providers and used to keep new providers from getting in. The best way to prevent these arrangements from occurring is...high-level regulation.
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Grasshopper, you miss the important details: that regulation was written by AT&T. All that regulation was penned by AT&T lawyers. Then they bought politicians who passed it into law. The affect is that unless you're a big established company, you cannot enter the market, much less compete.
This is not a left-right thing. The is a corporations writing laws thing. It happens all the time, in all industries. The laws protect the people with established revenue streams in ways you don't see because
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Which is why the government needs to get out of the way.
Of course businesses will use legislation to help itself. Giving more power to the government when it is already as entrenched with big corporations is not the answer
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I know it's difficult for left-wingers like yourself who have never even tried to run a sustainable, nevermind a profitable, business to understand this, but the lack of competition within the telecom industry is solely due to the extensive regulation that effectively makes it impossible for new entrants to participate in the market. Before you start with the 'natural monopoly' nonsense regarding infrastructure, you should realize that the only monopoly involved and causing problems is that of the government and its oppressive regulation. Technological difficulties can be overcome, even by relatively small players. Regulatory difficulties, on the other hand, are far worse to deal with, and in the telecom sector are nearly impossible to overcome except by the very largest players, and even they often experience extreme hardship. We see the problems we have today because left-wing regulatory schemes have paralyzed the market, resulting in the formation of an oligopolistic environment where the consumer ultimately suffers.
Completely and utterly wrong. Why don't you have a look at some other markets. How is it you think that having only one company is competition? I know you'll shit yourself but why don't you look at the models in european countries where infrastructure is largely separated from the ISP and there are actually lots of ISPs in competition with each other which does result in lower prices, uncapped lines and half decent customer service.
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but the lack of competition within the telecom industry is solely due to the extensive regulation that effectively makes it impossible for new entrants to participate in the market.
So Google can't make any money with their fiber business. That's because even after they sort through all the legal bullshit about who is allowed to touch what telephone poles (which is a completely and legitimate aspect of your argument), the telecoms simply drop the price in the area and subsidize those operations with heavier fees elsewhere. Classic under-cutting. Hey! Competition drops prices! WOOOO! Good times for the customer. In the few handful of places where Google as tried to come to town.
I'm shocked (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked!
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Well, time to use your Illudium Q36 Space Modulator and create a big boom on AT&T! ..nevermind..
Oh wait, that was Marvin.
But yeah, the headline might was well read, "Duh". Of course they did. Monopolies are bad, pure and simple. And they have a lousy history of ethics.
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It was a negative price decrease. See, Justice Department, a perfectly cromulent price adjustment.
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AT&T has this history... (Score:2)
'Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.'
Wash, rinse, repeat.
Re:AT&T has this history... (Score:5, Insightful)
And those who do learn from history are doomed to watch everyone else repeat it.
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Sad, but true.
I don't think it's related to the merger... (Score:3)
I think it's more like "Youtube did it, Playstation Vue did it, so can we".
Everybody's doing it and it will be going up if they are going to keep putting their money into developing their own tv shows.
Words Matter (Score:5, Insightful)
'enable to reduce' does not mean 'will reduce'. Stop reading what you want to see and instead read what's actually there.
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Re:Words Matter (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly at this point, anybody who expected a good-faith action from AT&T deserves what they got. AT&T will not keep any of its implied promises unless they are contractually bound to perform it—and even then, it will probably get its lawyers working on a way to find a loophole.
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Counsel: No we didn't.
J: Didn't what?
C: Say we'd lower prices.
J: You did! Right here: "The evidence overwhelmingly showed...it will enable the merged company to reduce prices..." See? "Lower prices."
C: Oh, yes, Your Honor. That totally happened. The merger has indeed enabled us to lower prices.
J: But...you...what? But you raised them.
C: Yes, Your Honor, we did. Of course we did. We're a business, we like making money. Why would we
Libz Predicted it & Conservatives will blame L (Score:4, Insightful)
Every liberal economic pundit predicted this would happen. Simple economics.
Most conservatives eagerly yearned for this merger and a conservative judge allowed it to proceed. Now they are blaming Liberals for letting the merger happen. The only question this time around is, will conservatives blame Mexico or a non-white group of people for the rise in prices. That's always what it comes down to.
Consequences (Score:3)
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What should happen is extremely steep fines for them, to be paid from their personal holdings, with a absolute bar on continuing to work in the industry for at least 10 years. The fine should be based on their wealth; e.g. if their total net worth (and n
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The Trump administration (republican) predicted it and sued to stop the merger. Your Fake News didn't mention that.
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The Trump administration (republican) predicted it and sued to stop the merger. Your Fake News didn't mention that.
Bzzzt! Wrong.
The Trump administration opposed the AT&T -- Time Warner merger because Time Warner owns CNN. Trump hates CNN because they aren't sympathetic to him, like Fox News is.
Fake news is a deliberate fabrication, written to deceive, confuse, or enrage (e.g., Pizzagate.) It is not the same as news with errors. It is not even the same as news written with a bias. Fake news is written by fake reporters.
Trump, on the other hand, defines fake news as anything he doesn't agree with.
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Sorry, but your entire post is a bunch of divisive know nothing.
http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/0... [cnn.com]
Both sides share more than enough blame here. No matter which party is in power more and more mergers like this are becoming possible.
Did you go and watch any of the Marvel Movies? Intellectual Properties that Disney purchased? Disney is silently becoming a mega merged movie and entertainment powerhouse. I bet your money is not where your mouth is and you give Disney your money. ATT is a bit different, some
Of course . . . (Score:4, Insightful)
Who did not see this coming . . .
remove monopoly and allow gov to put in fiber (Score:3)
BUT, at the least, it is time to destroy the monopolies.
Media + telco = same profits (Score:2)
The media company has to make media.
The telco connects networks and makes a profit.
Same costs to network, same need for profit.
That best possible streaming will be HD going to 4K.
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Why would adding a big media comply to a big telco company change the costs of networks around the USA? Lower TV prices? .
Because things aren't as simple as you imply. One overly simple answer is that by controlling both they have more leverage to use during price negotiations.
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Why drop the price when the population is paying that price now and will accept paying more for HD and new 4K?
New networks to ensure 4K is great and new media to entertain costs money.
The consumers pay what they pay now and can be told to pay more for new updates.
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Why would any results of "leverage to use during price negotiations" need to be passed onto the consumers? Why drop the price when the population is paying that price now and will accept paying more for HD and new 4K? New networks to ensure 4K is great and new media to entertain costs money. The consumers pay what they pay now and can be told to pay more for new updates.
Businesses at this level are more than willing to pass savings on to customers. The first would be due to direct competition. Not as relevant to the ISP, but is to the media side. The other is whether the increase of customers and/or public opinion due to the price cut will off set the profits lost by offering a savings. By cutting the prices after a major merge like this, they would be showing the customers the benefits of the merge. The customers would, potentially, start thinking better of the whole situ
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Re "cheap marketing with improved public opinion"
Its a media company selling to the USA and a telco thats networked in parts of the USA not a start up.
Businesses at that level just want more profits every year and the consumers to understand that prices have to go up for 4K, new media, better networks.
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The internet is not a new market.
Media sells on feeling and quality. That can bring in good profit.
The fun of new 4K is a great way to pass on new prices.
No one will accept smaller margins when they are not needed. A merger is not a new market, no something new to worry about.
Keep extracting new profits and use them to expand while the consumers still want to pay full price.
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Suspicious timing (Score:2)
Fuck AT&T sideways with a rusty chainsaw (Score:2)
I don't like them as a company to start with and had been half-heartedly looking to dump them for something cheaper. Anyone have any suggestions? All I need is wireless, nothing else, don't have or want a smartphone, just need basic cellular service and texting. Anyone have any opinions about Consumer Cellular? I know they market to senior citizens, but if they can cut my $55 a month bill in half when I barely use even 100 minut
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And I still can't login to Turner with DTVN! (Score:2)
So much shock (Score:2)
So much so, that we could power the entire planet for a day just from the shock factor found in this thread.
Womp Womp (Score:2)
https://sadtrombone.com/ [sadtrombone.com]
You might call it a lie... (Score:2)
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It did enable them to lower prices. They just chose not to.
Bingo!!!
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LOL! is the Jayfar account run by Trump or something?
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LOL! is the Jayfar account run by Trump or something?
Hardly. Just stating True Facts® and kind of a stickler for words having well-defined meanings. There simply is no promise offered or implied in the wording provided. People who think they see a "promise" where the word itself doesn't actually occur are bound to be disappointed regularly.
"enable the merged company to reduce prices" != "the merged company promises to reduce prices"
That doesn't mean I don't think AT&T is being shady, but they promised nothing.
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"because it WILL enable the merged company to reduce prices"
will, verb:
1. expressing the future tense.
2. expressing INEVITABLE events.
promise, noun:
1. a declaration or assurance that one WILL do something or that a particular thing WILL happen.
But thank you Trump, for opening your mouth to remove all doubt.
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Because TWC/Comcast WASN'T approved by Obama himself right?
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Now I'm on xfinity X1,
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They stated that the merger would *enable* them to reduce prices. They did not say they *would* reduce prices.
Yes, they're weasels. No, that's not perjury.