.
How many of you are following this news? Me being interested in Telecommunications and Information Technology major, this new deal and come back of major monopolist AT&T is pretty interesting. Might I add, its shocking as well, how quickly it rebounded from its fall. Now it's going to Merge with Bellsouth after getting help from SBC. If this happens, AT&T will become once again the major telecommunication industry after its collapse, will acquire Cingular (AT&T joined Cingular couple of years ago) and Cingular will become AT&T.

AT&T is now talking about charging fees for websites. Charge? why? If the fee is paid, they promise the website to be delivered to users fasters using their high speed lines which cost a lot of money for company to lay fibers underground. They are looking towards companies like GOOGLE to pay fees.

If the merger goes ahead, Bellsouth will become AT&T, and the only company remaining will be Verizon for North-East and Qwest for Mid-west States. Qwest is already on the edge because of its "not enough" services to its members, so now people are predicting that Qwest could be the next target of AT&T.

finally, a serious posting from reddy :-p

but it may be a homework assignment topic he got stuck with... kamti batho cha!!! ;-)

but interesting. la la ppl share your thoughts!

We were talking about this in our class today ?

Which companies takes more risks?

Monopolistic companies take more risk when they realize how much they were going to loose, else they only try to maintain their position. THis is the reason why only entreprenuers grow big as they always see no risk in developing themselves.

I hope this makes sense. Try to elaborate later but what i meant was AT& T saw the risk of losing themselves if they do not take some strategic steps ahead.
However, i do not know much about the market. so wait for Redstone to put his thought.

Guys, the new AT&T is called AT&T Inc. It is not the same old at&t bought by sbc. SBC change their name to AT&T 'cause the name AT&T is more popular throughout the world. They were talking about changing the cingular name also right after the cingular & at&t merger. So there is no such thing as AT&T rebounded. It's totally new AT&T.

yeah once all the baby bells merge, the US govt will divide them again... it might take a few years, but it will break again, just like standard oil and old days and microsoft (soon)...

Stale News................

Well, whether it is old AT&T or new AT&T Inc. its showing traits of monopolism already. The merger will get AT&T about 42% of the communication Market. Which will create a giant company, of course since they own the market...from them its like hearing
"My way or the highway"

kiwigal, of course its a stale news, i don't think anyone said "Breaking News"!

Chafutbam is right. AT&T did not rebound as the company - it is pretty much dead.. It is SBC who decided to adopt the name 'AT&T' when they took over whatever remained of them.

Okay, so its not the same old 80s company. but surely i see the traits of monopoly.
i dont want to type the whole news, and i can't find it on web. ill type and put it up about this matter later when i will have time!
but keep talkin, whether its stale or fresh! :P

some facts here.
Cingular wireless and ATW (AT&T wireless) merged. ATW was a spin off of AT&T [ happened somewhere in 2003 I believe].

Cingular wireless was jointly owned by SBC and Bellsouth. Meaning now acquisition of BELLSOUTH by SBC brings the OWNERSHIP to SBC. SBC ADOPTED ITSELF TO AT&T.

when AT&T (ma bell) was broken into 7 pieces (baby bells) it was a behemoth phone company with hands in long distance as well as local services. one company in all services throughout 50 states; coz of it monopolistic nature broken down.

PRESENT AT&T (NOW), is also in PHONE BUSINESS. It controls almost 50% of fortune 1000 clients. It controls almost 60% of US local phone business. Cingular and AT&T wireless combined has largest subscribers { which is dwindling of course. I can predict VERIZON being #1 once again}

there is no difference between OLD AT&T and NEW. same old shit different LABEL.

Now if you want to know about the divestiture of AT&T of its ATW { at&T wireless}, cable service was sold to comcast. Lucent, agere are spin off but they were the R&D and manufacturing division. etc etc.

QUEST could be AT&T target but not easy. AT&T now has 340,000 employees. very hard to integrate this kind of merger. Takes time.

I think next announcement would be VERIZON buys its INTERESTS from VODAFONE.

=====================================================
as always
what do i know (O:

even though someone said this is an old news, i just want to keep the discussion alive.
When the major telecomm act of 1996 was released everyone dreamed that all small companies and wanna be will get an equal opportunity to get a chuck out of this billion dollor industry. well this is still true but one this still hunts me; the whole purpose of implementing the 1996 Act to better pave the way for smaller fish in this big telecomm ocean is going against its own rule, I mean isn't all this merger going to affect the smaller fish in the tank? just a thought. please help me

do i have to change back to AT and T now ??????????????????????????///jeezz...as long as they send new phones ..i'm fine with it...

the new at&t is different (note my lower caset at&t-it's their new branding).... yes. it is actually sbc expanded as some of the users mentioned. one thing they sbc must make sure is that they do not keep legacy AT&T people around. they are the more bureaucratic than government employees

traditional phone service is a dying business that noone wants except to milk the last few drops of this cash cow. however, it still has some life left in it... in telecom, there is always that quality of service requirement of 5-7 nines, 99.99999 uptime guarantee. at&t had even given up traditional phone line business and going for voip, until sbc bought them.

agreed at&t+sbc+bellsouth will be have almost monopoly in traditional phone line business. however there will always be enough players in the today's market of wireless, voip, high speed broadband etc

thoughts?

Also, keep in mind that Verizon bought MCI and formed Verizon Business.

damn, took forever to find this thread.
Congratulations to AT&T, it has acquired bellsouth and cingular. I think most of know this already. :)

After more than a year of talks, it has merged finally.

Lets see what it does now? will it show any signs of its former at&t monopolistic company or no? we wait and watch

:-D

I think u'll love this one from Colbert Report:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bj1Mtv9cD0I

Just posting the video itself: