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SBC Might Buy AT&T
ChipGuy writes "SBC is in talks to buy AT&T according to Wall Street Journal and New York Times, both reporting price tag to be between $15-and-$16 billion. The news comes close on heels of SBC reported weaker earnings and 7000 job cuts. The New York Times says talks are fluid and sensitive. Wall Street Journal says, "a major acquisition would speak to SBC Chief Executive Edward Whitacre Jr.'s aim of turning the company into a national brand and his desire to do at least one final deal before he retires." Om Malik writes that "buying AT&T will make sense for anyone, and not just SBC. Why? Because AT&T still is the only game in the enterprise markets. MCI is hurting and Sprint clearly wants to focus on wireless. That leaves AT&T in a pretty good shape.""
It's been bought and sold so many times.
"Let's break up Ma Bell so that some 20 years later they will all merge back together to become an even more powerful and unstoppable force."
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
I might buy AT&T too. I love speculation. Who else might buy AT&T? Are you thinking about it? Raise your hand if you are thinking about anything else.
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There goes any sort of competition. I used to work for SBC, MCI, WorldCom, Ameritech. This would be the stupidest thing that the FCC and SCC could do to an industry.
I wonder if this is just a sign to come. With things like the internet (skype?) hurting the traditional phone companie's revenue streams, and with the slow but steady emergence of VoIP, the big phone companies days are numbered. They will still have a purpose, of course, but they'll have to learn to be more competitive in a more competitive industry.
I store my recipes online (the way nature intended)
Isn't this illegal? Isn't the Baby Bells and AT&T supposed to stay separate?
Step 1: Reuinite the Bells Step 2: Use uber resources to roll out fiber (which they apparently don't have to share like their copper) Step 3: Regain monopoly
Sounds like everyone wants to play...
in a pretty good shape?
And what shape would that be?
I work for MCI. Color me curious.
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You're right, at the current rate, there's just going to be another megaconglomerate. Luckily, the feds will have learned from their past mistakes, and know what to do next time this happens. What is this solution? Break them into smaller pieces, of course!
ALT="To all AT&T customers: we're here to stay" WIDTH="426" HEIGHT="60" BORDER="0" HSPACE="14" VSPACE="6"
Heck, I might even report this to the Register and get quoted as an "eagle eyed reader" like this guy did.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
The second thing to come to mind?
"We meet again, at last. The circle is now complete. When I met you I was but the learner. Now, *I* am the master. "
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Before we get into it about rebuilding the hated Ma Bell of yesteryear, keep this in perspective. SBC is right now one of the four remaining RBOCs, or Baby Bells, formed from the divestiture of AT&T (the original national phone monopoly) in 1984. The RBOCs already provide national long distance service (opened to them following the Telecommunications Act of 1996). AT&T is mostly a pure long distance and data network (WAN) player these days. The Bells have to have network-sharing agreements to provide national LD service. Qwest has an extensive fiber LD network though. So this potential acquisition would add a national long distance and data network to an incumbent local service provider and give it a huge presence in the enterprise market. It would not create a new national phone monopoly or be the Son of Ma Bell. They would be a formidable competitor though.
Why would you, as SBC, be looking to put out more cash, if you just LOST cash last reporting period?
This must be that business sense i hear so much about.
Not only that, but as an AT&T customer, I'd be scared. SBC is, with the possible exception of CompUSA, the worst company I have to deal with day in and day out. Their tech support is a fucking joke, and their products and services are medocre at best.
Aside from that, do these mega-mergers ever actually, you know, work? Timewarner-AOL, HP Compaq?
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
"a major acquisition would speak to SBC Chief Executive Edward Whitacre Jr.'s aim of turning the company into a national brand and his desire to do at least one final deal before he retires."
Let us hope he dies first.
and his desire to do at least one final deal before he retires
People always tell me that business leaders make their decisions based on hard facts and money. They're just as driven by vanity and shiny new things as the geeks are. They're just less honest with themselves ab't it...
...that they can announce 7K job cuts and then start making a play for a $15 billion+ acquisition.
I'm not good in groups. It's difficult to work in a group when you're omnipotent. - Q
never has this translation error turned joke applied more.
Anyhow, the telecommunications industry has changed dramatically since the breakup of AT&T, and the rationale for the breakup no longer exists. These days, cell phones are prevalent; competitors easily enter the market for cell phones, which can be used for local and long-distance calls. A re-united AT&T (SBC + Pacbell, which was purchases by SBC, + AT&T + Lucent, which includes Bell Labs) would not pose a monopolistic threat. Heck, a re-united AT&T would be no more monopolistic than Micro$oft.
Note that even the Internet poses additional competition in the telecommunication market. Many people use the Internet, via VOIP, to make telephone calls although they may not realize that their call is being routed via IP packets.
Well, that's easy. They'll buy AT&T for $13,824,458,752.
Your brain is not a computer.
Well, a subsidiary (Cingular) "merged" -- more or less the same thing. A great day for me, as I have Cingular but live in a house only covered by AT&T.
1) Break-up AT&T
2) Destroy Bell Labs
3) Re-assemble AT&T
4) Profit??
[Insert pithy quote here]
This has been happening for a while ... I've always likened it to the scene in T2 where the bad robot is dropped in liquid nitrogen and shatters .... then slowly we see all the drops start to flow together to remake the evil robot again ....
This would be one interesting acquisition if it did happen, if for nothing else reuniting AT&T with one of its spinoff companies. AT&T has a lot of assets (well those that it hasn't sold off) mostly tons of fiber in the ground, not just in the U.S. but internationally as well.
AT&T is sort of caught in the middle of things, they have a failed local business, long distance is dieing (if it's not dead already), and a highly competitive market place for IP services. What else does AT&T have that everyone else doesn't? They don't have their research labs any more (Lucent - another company in a downward spiral, hopefully coming back soon) or their computer division (NCR) and anything manufactured today isn't made by good old Western Electric, it's just rebranded (or someone bought the rights to the name.)
It's sad to see one of the leaders in telecommunications and research in such a poor state of business. I miss the good old days. Many people forget that AT&T (well Bell Labs) invented just a few things like the transistor, laser, TV transmission, etc. not to mention built automatic mechanical exchanges (think crossbar switches!) in days when all there were was vacuum tubes.
I remember getting tours of the 'Labs back a decade or so ago, it was still impressive what they were doing with technology back then. A lot of wireless stuff that's coming out now was created by them. Supposedly during their peak they'd churn out 2-3 patents a day, every day of the year. They had people that would do just hypothetical research, sitting around dreaming about nothing but the big bang theory and getting paid for it. Now that's research.
1) Lose money
2) Spend lots of money for a company losing even more money
3) ?????
4) profit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
I did a contract there once and it was total chaos. They had a fit if you wanted to factor code, instead paying armies of H1B's to copy-and-paste all over the place. Managers would always frenzy around like Chicken-Little, and then complain about having ulcers, like Duh! They yelled at each other when things went hay wire as if somebody is expected to be productive and efficient in such a tangled pasta factory.
They rented H1B's from small shady little companies so that they could deny involvment. These little companies would play all kinds of paper-work games to screw the H1B's. In fact, they got so used to it that they started doing the same thing to citizens, who took it in the ass because the job market was so lousy.
That place turned me into a Marxist in one fell swoop.
> The New York Times says talks are fluid and sensitive.
IOW, there's a lot of spitting and cursing.
I think that a lot of the research that the 'Labs has done in the past is sort of forgotten about (oh lets just say a lot of modern electronics). It will be interesting to see if anyone does buy out Bell Labs at some point, it's worth a lot, and is in shambles because of budget constraints at Lucent. Maybe Lucent will turn around and buy AT&T, now that would be something to see...
Here is a rundown of children companies spawned by AT&T over the last 20 years:
:p
Ameritech, Bell Atlantic, Bell South, Nynex, Pacific Telesis, SBC Communications, US West, Lucent, NCR, AT&T Wireless, Comcast.
After consolidation, a few of the companies above don't exist or are part of another company:
Ameritech -> Verizon
Bell Atlantic -> Verizon
Nynex -> Verizon
US West -> Qwest
Pacific Telesis -> SBC
old SBC -> SBC
MediaOne and original Comcast -> Comcast
AT&T Wireless -> Cingular (coincidentally owned by SBC and Bell South)
old Lucent -> Avaya, Agere, current Lucent
I think after 2 decades, Bell South remains largely untouched.....
Anyhow, useless facts aside, kick your parents for not buying AT&T stock 25 years ago, because there's been so many spinoffs and splits that we'd all be rich by now if they had
Oh and also the fact that "Ma" raised very incestuous children.
I agree that AT&T and SBC aren't exactly a monopoly threat, but I see customer service suffering in the end. I have to work with AT&T and SBC regularly and they are horrible to deal with. I couldn't imagine a small business trying to get them to fix anything. The FCC seems ok with letting SBC buy back all the baby bells, I only hope that this time there will truly be competition.
I read that as "SCO might buy AT&T"
...With things like the internet (skype?) hurting the traditional phone companie's revenue streams, and with the slow but steady emergence of VoIP, the big phone companies days are numbered.
Maybe but I doubt it. True, the days of POTS as a cash cow probably are numbered, though we could argue about exactly how much time the have left. But that hardly makes SBC, Verizon and the rest helpless. Someone still needs to deliver a connection to the curb. Despite increasing comptition from cable companies and wireless, the Baby Bells do have a large installed network that isn't easy to replace. Yeah, margins will get squeezed but someone will have to maintain that wire and there is money to be made there.
VOIP is still in its infancy (I say this as somone who uses Vonage daily and likes it) and needs easier installation and greater reliability before it replaces POTS to a large degree. Businesses will probably adopt it earlier but residences are going to take a while. Yes, it VOIP is the future but it's going to take a while and there's nothing preventing SBC and the rest from getting into that business.
As for wireless, SBC and Verizon are the #1 and #2 wireless providers in the US. Both are well positioned there. WiMax/WiFi is a potential threat in that it could make the last mile problem easier, but someone still has to provide the back end for that traffic and it isn't without its problems. (security, frequency crowding, availibility, speed, etc) And again, there is nothing preventing the Bells from competing here either.
So yes, SBC and the rest have their work cut out for them, but I wouldn't bet against them at this point. We're likely to see further consolidation as telecomunications becomes more and more of a commodity business but that doesn't imply that the Baby Bells are going to disappear any time soon. Change? Yes. Disappear. Doubt it.
And everybody wondered what this was about.
Here's how it goes:
Step 1: Start a company with potential as a natural monopoly.
Step 2: Convince the government that your growth is good for the country and have them pay for your infrastructure.
Step 3: Print money until the government realizes they screwed up and break you up.
Step 4: Realize you screwed up by not having tighter reigns on the government.
Step 5: Work behind the scenes for a few decades to get the government back under control.
Step 6: Remerge and continue where you left off - printing money.
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
Don't forgot that 3 of the 5 MAJOR (soon to be 3 of the 4) cell phone companies are offerings from phone companies!! If the Bells join together, their cellular service will also. Barring any gov regulation.
Land lines arguably still hold market power for local service. Combining that with wireless, etc. and it is possible that we will see a return of Ma Bell....
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
The Southern Baptist Convention's going to buy a phone company?!?!
Cell phones replace land lines only if you are willing to forego the following: a phone that works during a major emergency, and DSL. Last I checked, SBC still owns the last-mile connections to homes and businesses in the southwest. Which is the only reason why, for the past 4 years, they were able to extract their $17 a month from me, despite having the worst products and the worst service I've ever seen anywhere.
So yeah, they're still a monopoly, and acquiring ATT will expand their monopolistic reach. Or how do you think people connect to the Internet? Pixie dust?
Looking at AT&Ts balance sheet tells a sad tale.
Sure they still have assets left over from the monopoly days, but they are rapidly disappearing. I hope SBC doesn't want them for their management skills, they have made some of the dumbest decisions in the business world. (IBM holds the record for picking MS to build their PC OS.)
Right behind it was AT&Ts decision to give in during the antitrust trial because they wanted to go into the computer business.
Lately AT&T has been selling every part of their business that has a chance of success, cable, wireless.
I say, let them die, they seem to have a death wish.
Just got done going through about 5 people whose accent was so terrible that I couldn't understand what they were saying half the time. And my DSL/PPPoE/Linux problem is still not solved because they only want Windows and Mac using their version of the internet!
That's like saying that Microsoft is no more evil than Satan, or maybe it's like saying something's no hotter than the sun. Or no colder than absolute zero
Experience tells us, and MS's court records confirm, that MS is a particularly nasty, convicted monopolist. No worse than that is faint praise indeed.
See what I've been reading.
Having been screwed every which way by AT&T every time I have ever done business with them in the past, nothing would make me happier then to see them die a horrible death.
Please, oh please, let AT&T go bankrupt and be picked up piece by piece by thier competitors. Let every support, billing, and manager at AT&T be turned out on the street. Ahhh. It would be such a sweet retribution for all the over-charges, screwed billing, hidden fees, horrible service, false advertising, etc...
To have AT&T be bought out before they screw themselves to death would be truly dissapointing. Hopefully, SBC can wait it out and pick up thier assets later when they finally wither and die.
Why would you, as SBC, be looking to put out more cash, if you just LOST cash last reporting period?
Depends on why they lost money and what sort of a deal they can get. One down quarter isn't necessarily a big deal. AT&T has a real gem of an asset in their enterprise business and another in their network which I'm sure is why SBC is interested. They've talked before about a merger. BellSouth did too a few years back. But AT&T also has a lot of debt and some rapidly sinking businesses. SBC would have to rework or get rid of this debt for the merger to happen. But if SBC can get a sweetheart deal, it might make sense.
Personally, I think the deal is probably a bad idea. As I mentioned before, AT&T's debt load is a problem. There also are competitive issues. The merger could jeapordize SBC's relationship with BellSouth which jointly owns Cingular with SBC. Plus there is the question of whether it can pass regulatory scrutiny; something that is by no means assured. I don't see any obvious way to fix AT&T's problems but I don't have all the facts either.
Due to the title of this article, I just noticed that Firefox doesn't translate SGML character references (ex. © = ©) in RSS feed bookmarks. That may be an issue with the Windows GUI, though. There's bound to be someone around here looking at this from Firefox under *nix - does it appeart to be universally broken, or is it just a windows thing?
AT&T is, alas, a sad shadow of its former self, and by that I mean its post-divestiture former self. But it is still a significant competitor, both the largest long distance company (a declining-revenue market, to be sure) and a significant local player (its TCG is a big player in metro fiber). Plus they've got some ISP operations. It would be sad to see Ed's Evil Empire get a hold of them.
;-) If he gets AT&T, he feels his P. is again bigger than that of Ivan Seidenberg of Verizon (or especially Ivan's predecessor Ray Smith, whose ghost hangs over the place).
Ed Whittacre wants them for the same reason he bought SNET and AT&T Wireless (which was not owned by AT&T at the time) -- he's constantly trying to be bigger than Verizon. I call it a "P.D." contest, where "D." stands for Dimensions. Frank Zappa had a song by that name, in case you can't guess what the dick I'm talking about.
AT&T's core problem is that they are operating in highly competitive markets, and their internal culture grew up in a monpopoly and never adapted. SBC, on the other hand, is, uh, well, if the question is acting competitive, they're like asking a tropical fish to be a downhill ski instructor. Without monpopoly power, SBC is dead meat.
I hope not, we use SBC for our phone bills but AT&T DSL Service... so hopefully SBC won't rid us AT&T'ers of our 1.5Mbps connection and replace it with their cr@ppy 384Kbps connection...
Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Bugs are good for building character in the user.
Cingular already bought AT&T Wireless. For SBC (40% owner of Cingular) to buy the remainder of AT&T would be a smart move on their part. It's my impression they're doing it for access to the marketshare rather than any infrastructure or technology they have. What SBC wants is more customers, this is a very direct way to do it.
I do wonder if this will mean SBC can sell local service beyond the 13 state region they are currently in?
I don't think Lucent owns Bell Labs. I believe Bell Labs was owned by SAIC and operated under the Telcordia name.
Recent press release:
SAIC SIGNS AGREEMENT TO SELL TELCORDIA TO PROVIDENCE EQUITY AND WARBURG PINCUS
If SBC does take over AT&T, they need to keep the AT&T name and the deathstar symbol. Please don't adopt a really stupid name, like, say, Verizon. BELL ATLANTIC FOREVER!
Southeastern Virginia REPRESENT!
AT&T in its glory days was over a million employees. Now I believe AT&T is trying to get their work force under 50,000 employees. Quite a change. The beginning of the end started when Armstrong was made CEO and he spent all of AT&T's cash on foolhardy cable purchases. Next AT&T spun off their wireless and cable business--which have since been bought by other companies. Since 2000 AT&T has been floundering--trying to find a buyer. If you check the old news stories you should find a couple of periods where Bellsouth was maybe going to buy AT&T. AT&T has a few smart folks left working for them--but overall the quality workers bailed for greener pastures long ago. I know I did.
As well, I would not want Bell Labs to fall into the hands of, say, Ecoma Enterprises; Ecoma is a Taiwanese company that Washington has penalized (according to page 133 of "The Federal Register" for 2005 January) for assisting Iran in building better missiles with nuclear capability.
What's the big deal? Either Iran get the technology from them, or they will get it directly from the US goverment.
the research triangle in North Carolina, consisting of Duke University, UC-Raleigh, and one other university
UC-Raleigh? You must be a Californian. I mean, even if you completely ignore sports you've surely heard of a guy named Michael Jordan (no not that one). It's UNC. Adding the qualifier Chapel Hill is even a little pedantic. Also, the other school you were looking for is NC State.
Never underestimate the power of fiber.
Lord god, do you have a website by chance? Seriously, judging from this comment, i'd like to read a little more of what you have to say. Sorry to ask like this, but you don't any links i can see (not logged in - is it in your sig?). And to the terribly boring troll who will comment behind me (as they always do): get a job.
Doesn't MCI own Sprint?
Here's some more information about Ecoma Enterprise. It is based in Taiwan and did, indeed, help the Iranians. The American government has penalized Ecoma and 8 other companies who assisted Iran.
SBC has history of poor customer service. The following two issues are examples of my experience with SBC.
1. The short story is that SBC owed me ~$100 bucks. Over the course of a year, I spoke to several SBC reps over the phone to get back my money. Each time I was told a check would be cut and/or someone would call me back about the issue. I finally decided to sit down and state the facts in a well organized letter to SBC Customer Service (with legal overtones) with attached "exhibits". Lo and Behold, the day SBC receives the letter I get a call (apology) directly from its Executive Office. Within a week of this conversation I have my money.
2. SBC DSL tech support closed my trouble ticket without contacting me as they said they would. But more importantly, they closed the ticket without fixing my problem.
Yes it would pose a threat. It would consolidate efforts in the DSL and cable markets, effectively creating yet another consumer broadband monopoly. The only thing left is for SBC-AT&T to buy Comcast and we're all screwed.
Not everyone lives in a large city full of wi-fi spots.
Better for everyone except the customers. Somehow we seem to keep getting lost in all of this. Honestly, I don't see how allowing that Southern Boys' Club otherwise known as SBC to become even more all-encompassing can be construed as a "good thing" to anyone but the upper management of SBC and AT&T. Give me a month's pay for one of those guys and I could probably retire early.
But, if you're going to commit an antitrust violation of potentially Biblical proportions, best to do it during the balance of the Bush Administration's tenure. Breaking up illegal monopolies is not one of Curious George's priorities.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
SBC is a company which has allowed a pseudo-criminal mentality to perfuse it's culture.
As a Texas resident and small business person, I have had several lines from SBC, and still have one to a residence. I switched all my other lines to AT&T some years back when they became competitors.
SBC will:
-- Lie in it's advertised rates; the bill will list the correct base fee but list a lot of charges as "taxes and fees" where they aren't taxes, because SBC keeps the money. (AT&T does this too.)
-- Lie in it's audits to justify those fees, listing costs such as "0 trucks @ $50,000 each == $2 million"
-- Look at the amount of money SBC spends lobbying the state legislature . . . enough said.
-- SBC's shareholders are robbed by the rate of pay to the CEO, who receives a huge raise every year even if the stock goes down.
-- Competitors in Texas who are LAYING THEIR OWN CABLE are offering base residential phone service at $8.50/mo, and making money, while SBC starts at 3 times that (after all the fees, of course). But that competitor (Grande Communications) can't offer ME service because 2 local governments are refusing digging permits.
I currently have 2 lines with AT&T that are probably not needed, or could at least be replaced by a voip service. I will do that if SBC buys AT&T. I can't do anything about the other SBC line (politics of having family members involved in your business).
SBC is an evil monster that we must starve by denying it our business. It is poisoning Texas, and if it expands much more, it will poison the other countries in the US as well. It is a repository of 250,000 slothful and dishonest souls who will be dumped into the job market or public dole when the house of cards finally comes down, revealing a bankrupt institution and retirement funds, just like Enron but bigger.
SBC is expanding so far that it is not an exaggeration to say that it must be stopped now for the good of the WHOLE NORTH AMERICAN CONTINENT.
I'd rather see them merge with Agilent, at least that way they'd have someone to commiserate with about the destructive short-term thinking so prevalent in the business world. Oh, and how Carly Fiorina is a total fuckwit but nobody can say it for fear of being labeled a sexist.
if one of the RBOCs buys lucent, they're in for a surprise. ATT/lucent fell off a lot of RBOC purchase lists when ATT started getting aggressive about stealing customers from the bells.
imagine it this way... lucent knows what your internal network is, because they bid it and coordinated designing it, when you bought their switches. they know it to the turns of the bolts that hold it to the rack, because likely as not, you outsourced the keeping of the switches to lucent field suppport. and now, a competitor wants to buy your supplier?
for that reason, I don't suppose that lucent or nortel or alcatel or fujitsu or any of the major vendors want to cuddle up at the boardroom level. bang, you have no external customers any more. not calculated to get wail streak happy about you in a geniunely pissy stock market right now.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
SBC may buy AT&T? They just started offering local service from other companies a few years ago in my area, and after enough totally crappy service from SBC, I was disgusted and switched to AT&T for local service. It's been less than perfect at times, but I've been able to feel good about it because at least it's not arrogant, snotty, incompetent SBC.
The break from SBC happened after I tried to do a simple thing: get caller-id added to my existing service. At first they refused to just tell me prices and go through the huge crap where they ask me a bunch of questions and then tell me what they think I should order. Eventually I managed to get the stupid guy to tell me some prices and some of the terms of the different plans so I could make my own decision based on, you know, facts. We went through it several times because his answers about which plans include what and how much they cost kept changing, but eventually he repeated some stuff back to me and it seemed like we were clear, and we set up the order. I tried to get him to tell me how much tax would be on my order, but he (like all other SBC reps) couldn't tell me. They are fond of saying that it'll be "about 10 dollars", but if asked whether they'd like to buy something without being able to find out exactly how much it costs, they just avoid the question and say "about 10 dollars" again. But I resolved to live with it since the guy assured me it was very unlikely it'd be more than $10.
Then I got the bill. Turns out everything he told me about the pricing was wrong. Not only had they charged me a different rate, but they also charged me some set-up fee which he had reiterated over and over would not be charged.
We went back and forth several times. I called and tried to get them to give me what they promised to give me for the price they promised. They managed to remove the set-up fee. Then they switched me to some other pricing scheme, and I got the bill again, and they were again charging me more than claimed. Also, they failed to refund the difference between the originally-promised rate and the rate they originally gave me, electing instead to decide I wouldn't mind as long as the rate was corrected in the future.
All the while, they were completely unhelpful and rude. At no point did anyone even have the courtesy to acknowledge that they had inconvenienced me or take any kind of steps towards not pissing me off further.
So I finally just said "screw this" and switched to AT&T. After I switched from SBC to AT&T, some SBC people called to tell me they really wanted me back as a customer. I told them that I'd been very unhappy with their customer service, that I'd given them many opportunities to improve things, that they'd not shown any sign of changing, and that the reason I quit was that I was tired of dealing with them and didn't wish to do it anymore. In other words, offering me a slightly better deal isn't going to cut it, because the pricing is not the fundamental problem. Plus, if they had any clue about how to treat someone with a modicum of respect, they wouldn't call up and act like nothing is wrong and keep asking me to come back.
So, what did SBC do? THEY CALLED ME EVERY COUPLE OF WEEKS AND REPEATED THE SAME DAMN OFFER. This of course reinforced the idea that they don't have any desire to listen to what the customer wants. I told them every time that they'd already had their chance and now it was over. Yet they kept calling again. Eventually I just explicitly asked them not to call again, since they couldn't figure that out themselves based on "you screwed up repeatedly and now it's too late".
So, now I find that of course SBC is going to buy the fucking company that I switched to in order to get away from SBC. I think they're doing it just to piss me off. It must be some kind of dominance game with them or something.
That has totally turned around. The valuable part of the deal turned out to be the local wire monopoly. Being #1 in a competitive long distance market turned out to be of minor value.
Is this what passes for an argument these days?
Jeremy
Looking for a Python IRC bot?
If we can get the corporations out of our airwaves and build wireless mesh networks, we won't have to worry about monopolies. That should be the goal.
I think we need to realize that the new offspring of SBC/AT&T won't be nearly as powerful as the original. I mean, in the days of Ma Bell you couldn't even buy or sell a telephone except through them. Also, with the huge wireless/cell market today, which AT&T is already dropping out of if they haven't already, land lines aren't the only option, and some people have stopped using them altogether. It's true that this new corporation would own most of the major communications lines throughout the country, but SBC already does anyway, and you can already find their service charges on your monthly bill. As a matter of fact, SBC doesn't own all the major lines--Qwest owns a few of the major fiber data channels.
However, that said, this merger would put the new 'SBCT&T' at a large advantage over the other phone carriers, kind of like a big teenager stealing the kindergarteners' milk money as they walk to school.
One of the key things that hurt AT&T since the divestiture was the inability to compete on price, they unlike all other carriers were subject to regulation by the FCC. So when a competitor comes out with a great new offering, it took a long time before AT&T could match since they had to get permission to do so.
The FCC extends its Competitive Carrier deregulation of the interstate telephone industry, ruling that it will rely on market forces instead of regulation to control the rates of all carriers except AT&T, under a policy known as "forbearance."
Microsoft's abuse of its monopoly position doesn't really seem to have been punished at all... so the standard of behaviour for other companies has been established.
The Yanks would be scared to attack Iran then.
After all, North Korea has nukes, and they're fine -- Iraq couldn't get them, and look what happened to them.
I fail to see how Bell Labs could be funded any better from a single Baby Bell than it is now through Lucent. The days of the monopoly are long over and no telco is going to be able to support the premium of the Bell Labs of old. Lucent curently offers services and equipment to all the Baby Bells, AT&T, wireless carriers, cable providers, as well as other telcos globally. This is a marketplace where Lucent has many global competitors. Some of the revenue from these offerings goes back into Bell Labs to develop better offerings. So Bell Labs has to be more focused on business needs than under a government endorsed monopoly and a lot of research simply had to be eliminated.
That is called capitalism.
It takes a monopoly to support the Bell Labs of old. That is either a government funded effort or perhaps Microsoft. In a competitive market, long term research with risky far off paybacks can't be supported.
Disclaimer: I am a Lucent employee speaking my own opinion. I am currently working on an AT&T contract.
If you had my real name, you'd use an alias too.
That's like saying that Microsoft is no more evil than Satan, or maybe it's like saying something's no hotter than the sun. Or no colder than absolute zero
Or no more links than in your posts. Yes, thank you, I think I got the point already.