RSSBellSouth, AT&T Merger Moves Forward
By Ed Oswald | Published July 21, 2006, 1:01 PM
BellSouth shareholders on Friday approved the $67 billion sale of the company to AT&T, which would further expand the latter company's reach in the telecommunications sector and place Cingular under a single owner. The two companies say the merger would benefit the nation's largest cellular provider, whose management structure is split between AT&T and BellSouth executives. The deal is still subject to government scrutiny, which may force the combined company to shed some of its assets.
Additionally, AT&T Wireless would likely make a comeback -- at least in name -- as the company plans to phase out the Cingular trademark. The merged company would provide landline service to 70 million customers, wireless to 54.1 million, and broadband access to 10 million. Services would be provided in 22 states, although Cingular operates nationally.
Hopefully this means we'll start having better service around here. Bellsouth is absolutely terrible. This could have something to do with all these new DSL cables they've been burying around lately I guess.
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|wow!! right back to where we were a little over 20 years ago... AT&T and GTE... But Now It's AT&T and Verizon. Perhaps these two monsters will merge and have one freaking standard and just offer quality service instead of blathering about how many subscribers they got and who has the less dropped calls..
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|They should never had broken AT&T up in the first place. What happen at Worldcom would have never happened at AT&T. I spent 32 years of my life with the old OHIO BELL and have no regrets working for them.My son works for Bell South in Atlanta Ga. Witch will now become AT&T, back where we started. THank You
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|When they broke up the original Bell System, the quality infrastructure declined. The old Western Electric manufacturing, combined with Bell Laboratories R&D, had the best telco equipment around. The telephones & switch equipment manufactured before the breakup, were designed to last between 30 & 40 years! They were not disposable like the equipment today. As an old (former) Bell Labs researcher, I can attest to this. They used platinum & gold plating on all contacts.
Phones survived extreme drop tests, crush testing, etc. Drop a phone now, and the buttons pop fall out, etc. The phone was made reliable, as it was considered to be a lifeline.
And payphones, remember them? They were partially subsidised by ma bell, and was a dime or quarter to place a call for many years until Verizon took it over.
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|Oh no they din't!!!!
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|Didn't they just launch a whole slew of Cingular commercials?
...talk about a waste of money.
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|Bellsouth had the gaul to send me a bill for $2.84 for a bill that is months old and that they said that I over paid and then they sent the money back to me. Now they are saying that I owe them. This is why I canceled them. They never know how to bill and the service horrid.
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|Wecome back Ma Bell. Didn't take too long, did it?
AT&T + SBC, now AT&T + BellSouth....
Yeah, we broke 'em up cuz we were bored...
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|So does this mean that Cingular will once again be known as AT&T Wireless?
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|It seems counterproductive to phase out the Cingular brand after years of trying to combime Cingular and AT&T Wireless into the Cingular brand name. What's the point?
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|i agree.. at least to me the cingular brand name stands out very much in my mind whereas at&t wireless is only a vague memory to me ("i think i remember that company").. i don't even know if AT&T wireless still exists. at least in my area, they'd be doing themselves a disservice by canning the cingular name, lots of people would probably think of it as a fringe cellular provider, at least i would.
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|Yes.
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|I agree. It seems kind of pointless in my opinion since Cingular is really well-known now because it's the largest cell phone provider and especially because of those commercials. "More bars in more places" or what not. I'm a Cingular customer myself and I find that them changing the name back to AT&T Wireless seems both stupid and pointless.
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|I agree with PC_Tool, Welcome Back
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