Consumer Reports: Verizon Best, AT&T Worst → Re: Tarnished Name

Look in your history books and AT&T/Bell System had a monopoly on wireline telephone service like Comcast and Verizon have a duopoly on high speed Internet today.

If US District Court judge Harrold Greene would have not been brave enough to break up Bell System, they would probably have a monopoly on cell phone service as well.

I have lived all over the country and never even had Comcast or Verizon as an option for high speed internet...hardly a duopoly...

"they would probably have a monopoly on cell phone service as well."

If we were lucky enough to have it at a reasonable price...

Brave judge? I think not. Case was filed by DoJ. AT&T chose "consent" over battle because consent removed the barrier to AT&T entry into the computer business; i.e., AT&T agreed to be broken up because they saw an advantage to doing so. Where is the "courage" in that?

This is correct info that few people know. Several other big companies were in the same boat but won their cases. The AT&T name was bought by the baby bell SBC for PR reasons after AT&T went bankrupt.

I am trying to find the bankruptcy filing for AT&T. It appears that AT&T took a hit when Worldcom filed for bankruptcy, but ...

It seems that Cingular Wireless, the joint SBC-Bellsouth venture, bought the "AWEful" AT&T TDMA network, but AT&T had retained the right to the "AT&T Wireless" name. This put Cingular in a poor competitive position.

I suppose "PR" is the short of it. But SBC re-branded as AT&T, then bought Bellsouth on the heels of the AT&T buyout. I'd guess that then SBC CEO, Ed Whitacre, wanted the whole shebang: 100% control of Cingular (SBC-Bellsouth merger) and the AT&T Wireless brand.

I don't think you'll find one. I don't recall AT&T ever filing for bankruptcy. They were getting close, tho.My take has always been SBC figured to kill two birds with one stone: Lose the bad image they had and gain the cachet of being "AT&T."

And it worked, after a fashion. Many, perhaps most, non-TelCom people I talked to thought AT&T had bought SBC, et al. Of course, eventually people figured it out, because SBC didn't actually change anything except their name.Close. SBC re-branded itself as "AT&T," then bought-out BellSouth's share of Cingular and renamed it "AT&T Wireless," then borged BellSouth.

Jim

I still encounter people who think that AT&T bought SBC. And SBC was probably the worst of the "Baby Bells" ... except for the Pacific Telesis Group.