JD Power: AT&T Still Stinks at Customer Service → Re: What's up with the AT&T brand?

Everybody likes to say cingular bought at&t. That's what AT&T wants you to believe. I think it was some kind of, you buy me, I buy you deal.
Cingular (a conglomeration of two baby bells) buys AT&Ts wireless division. Later , like you said, The New AT&T buys Cingular's parent CO, and picks up the Yellow pages too. Hence the AT&T logo returns.
How long did Cingular hold control of their wireless division? I know not long enough to have any effect on the framework of the Company. It was probably never meant to effect any changes until the return.
Was all this razel dazel to to stay under the antitrust radar, when the feds don't seem to care?
They (feds) have allowed Verizon and AT&T to buy up and merge with as many baby bells, cable companies, and independent wireless companies as they see fit to own.
The biggest crock is the feds telling Sprint they could not buy MCI, but allowed Verizon to buy MCI 6 years later.
Was it Truman said the buck stops here? we need him back.
Why would the feds bust their A to break up the old Ma Bell. And then seem to go out of their way to put it back together again.
Now there is some real tax dollars at work.
Not to mention your phone bill when all this buying runs out of companies to buy. (Dam they worked hard, they deserve it. Right?)

If you thought I was saying that, I apologize. I had know idea that saying something like, "AT&T (nee SBC) bought Bellsouth was to gain full control of Cingular, for the purpose of restoring its original brand: AT&T Wireless" could be so misconstrued.

AT&T was broken into at least at pieces; two of which were Southwestern Bell Telephone and Bellsouth. AT&T retained some bits, though, including the Wireless operation.

SWBT rebranded as, "SBC Global".

Two other pieces of Humpty Dumpty, Bell Atlantic and NYNEX, merged with non-Bell General Telephone and Electric to form Verizon. So Verizon is not all Baby Bell.

AT&T sold their Wireless operation, which was jointly bought by SBC and Bellsouth. SBC went on to by two other pieces of Humpty Dumpty, Ameritech and The Pacific Telesis Group. But they also picked up one non-Bell company, Prodigy, and one former Bell company (spun off by AT&T before the breakup), Southern New England Telephone.

So not only is Verizon not all Baby Bell, so also is SBC not all Baby Bell.

If you have been able to keep track so far, the original AT&T Wireless is now branded as, "Cingular", and jointly owne by SBC and Bellsouth.

Next SBC bought AT&T, then rebranded as AT&T. This is interesting because the original AT&T was forbidden, under the terms of the consent decree, from using the "Bell" brand; that was reserved for the seven RBOCs. So AT&T was no longer a "Bell" company until SBC bought them.

Finally, and my suspicion, SBC (dba AT&T) bought Bellsouth, in order to gain full control of Cingular; in order that they could restore the original brand of the wireless operation: AT&T.

So if you think I believe Cingular bought AT&T, you really haven't understood what I wrote.

P.S. I suppose I should add that there are no pure "Baby Bells" left.

The first to fall was USWest, bought by non-Bell Qwest. And Qwest, itself, was recently bought by non-Bell CenturyLink. So we currently have:

• AT&T: Formed from four "Baby Bells", and two non-Bell companies.
• CenturyLink: Formed from one "Baby Bell", and three non-Bell companies (CL being a merger of CenturyTell with Embarq).
• Verizon: Formed from two "Baby Bells", and one non-Bell company.

In fact, the USWest brand was so deeply buried by Qwest, and now further buried by the acquisition of Qwest by CenturyLink, that hardly anybody, outside of that company, remembers that there is a Bell company buried within that string of mergers.