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The Return of "Ma Bell"
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baw
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Mar 5, 2006, 04:06 PM
 
AT&T Reaches Deal to Buy BellSouth for $67 Billion
Sunday, March 05, 2006

NEW YORK — AT&T Inc. confirmed that it acquired BellSouth Corp. for $67 billion Sunday.

The deal will substantially expand the reach of AT&T, already the country's largest telecommunications company by the number of customers served.

AT&T was formed by San Antonio-based SBC's acquisition of AT&T Corp. in November. The deal added a substantial national reach to the former Southwestern Bell's local business, which is concentrated in 13 states, including Texas, California, and the Midwest.

Atlanta-based BellSouth is the dominant local telephone provider in nine Southeastern states.

The merged company will have 70 million local-line phone customers and nearly 10 million broadband subscribers.

Such a merger would have been difficult to get past antitrust regulators only a few years ago, but regulators have recently looked more benignly on consolidation among telephone companies, letting through deals like SBC's acquisition of AT&T and Verizon Communications Inc.'s acquisition of MCI.

In arguing for the mergers, telephone companies have been pointing out that they no longer are the only way to place a phone call, with competition from cellular, Internet and cable telephony.

In wireless, AT&T and BellSouth are already partners, jointly owning the nation's largest carrier, Cingular Wireless LLC. That business has grown strongly since it was formed in 2001 by the merger of a number of regional wireless carriers, and there has been speculation that AT&T wanted to assume full control of this growth business.

BellSouth's price for its Cingular stake may have been an outright sale of the whole company.

Regulators broke up the old AT&T telephone monopoly, or "Ma Bell," in 1984 into eight regional Bell companies and a long-distance and equipment company that retained the AT&T name.

The regional Bells have gobbled up one another till now only four remain, with Qwest Communications International Inc. and BellSouth far behind SBC and Verizon in size.
Funny.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_System_divestiture
     
mindwaves
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Mar 5, 2006, 08:31 PM
 
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/03/05/att....ap/index.html

Under the deal, the Cingular brand will be phased out in favor of the AT&T brand. The name will be familiar to wireless customers: AT&T Wireless Inc., a spin-off of AT&T, was acquired by Cingular in October 2004.
     
baw  (op)
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Mar 5, 2006, 10:53 PM
 
Haha, I figured that would happen. What a waste of peoples time and money.
     
f1000
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Mar 5, 2006, 11:04 PM
 
First I was on AT&T Wireless, then I got sold to Cingular, and now I'm being bought back by AT&T. The Cingular folks even had the audacity to screw up my accounts during the migration process.
     
osiris
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Mar 5, 2006, 11:07 PM
 
Great! Can I stop paying three separate phone bills now?
     
dcmacdaddy
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Mar 6, 2006, 12:40 AM
 
Originally Posted by f1000
First I was on AT&T Wireless, then I got sold to Cingular, and now I'm being bought back by AT&T. The Cingular folks even had the audacity to screw up my accounts during the migration process.
Me too. I am SO freaking PISSED about this I can't stand it.
But, I've got over a year to go on my contract before it expires.

Who knows who I will switch to now?!? I swtiched to AT&T from
Sprint only to get gobbled up by Cingular and now I am becoming
an AT&T customer again. F^ckers!!!
One should never stop striving for clarity of thought and precision of expression.
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iDriveX
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Mar 6, 2006, 03:29 AM
 
If all that changes about Cingular's service is the name, I'll be a happy customer, but if they throw us somehow into AT&T wireless's systems and make it like it used to me, I will be a very unhappy customer.

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Dakar
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Mar 6, 2006, 09:16 AM
 
So, back in '74, did AT&T have a strangle hold on local, regional, and long-distance service?
     
itai195
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Mar 6, 2006, 07:43 PM
 
Originally Posted by dcmacdaddy
Me too. I am SO freaking PISSED about this I can't stand it.
But, I've got over a year to go on my contract before it expires.

Who knows who I will switch to now?!? I swtiched to AT&T from
Sprint only to get gobbled up by Cingular and now I am becoming
an AT&T customer again. F^ckers!!!
The only thing that'll happen to Cingular is maybe a name change back to AT&T now that it's completely owned by AT&T. But today's AT&T is actually SBC, they changed their name to AT&T when they acquired the company last year.

The poor SF Giants have had to change the name of their ballpark yet again. It started life as Pacific Bell Park, way back in those bygone days of April 2000.
     
wdlove
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Mar 6, 2006, 11:42 PM
 
It will be interesting to see what happens with AT&T.

"Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense." Winston Churchill
     
   
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