“Outside applications need to be on an equal footing with our own applications,” John Donovan said at a SUPERCOMM keynote here in Chicago. “My jaw dropped,” one of his colleagues told me a few minutes later, because this is a reversal of AT&T’s long-standing position they needed to be able to favor their own applications. AT&T D.C. needs to listen closely to their own CTO, because they are throwing everything they have in D.C. at preventing “non-discrimination” being included in the FCC Net Neutrality regulations.

Apps are critical to the success of the iPhone, which “is transforming AT&T’s entire network and business,” again according to a colleague. He knows that the (mostly) open platform of the iPhone is necessary to give iPhone apps access, which in turn is crucial to the success of AT&T wireless. Donovan suggests that a similar openess will make a dramatic difference across the business. If they discriminate in favor of their own video, games, or whatever comes next, developers will be hard to attract.

John is still new to AT&T, and clearly is “thinking different.” His handlers apparently forgot to tell him what not to say, so he explained AT&T’s strategy straight, not filtered through his (extremely effective) D.C. lobbyists. Presumably, an angry phone call from D.C. now has told him to shut up.

Ed Gubbins at Telephony has the quote as “We use the principle of ‘us on us,’” [Donovan] said, referring to AT&T services on AT&T’s network. “If we take an external developer and ourselves, we should not be advantaged in how long it takes or how much expertise is required. It needs to be that simple, because that would put the foundation in place for how to horizontalize all your platforms in a way. Far enough is when you’re on equal footing with anyone that externally would be looking to bind your network. Whether you’re reaching for physical assets, logical assets or into the IT systems, I don’t think it needs to be that complicated. You just have to say, ‘Is us on us the same as them on us?’ ... We have to prepare our networks for a world where the user experience is going to be [controlled by] any number of different companies unique to the individual user.”

Richard Epstein can make a sensible argument against Net Neutrality (government will screw things up,) but the AT&T advocates in D.C. apparently can’t. At least one said equal treatment would be impossible, foolishly contradicting his CTO, SVP, and CEO Ed Whitacre testifying in the Senate. Kim Hart reported DC opinions that U-Verse spending would be decimated if the rules went through, a silly notion. Cable is clobbering them where they don’t have U-Verse and they can’t afford to cut it back.