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SBC and AT&T Boards Vote to Go Ahead

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the death-star-to-tighten-its-grip dept.

telstar writes "As a follow-up to earlier coverage regarding the possible acquisition of AT&T by SBC, MSNBC is reporting that boards from both companies met to vote today and that the acquisition will go forward at a price of 16 billion dollars. Both companies are currently keeping the deal quiet."

3 of 203 comments (clear)

  1. Uh... dude by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative
    Welcome to 1996
    In February 1996, the soon-to-be-spun-off systems and technology unit of AT&T [includes Bell Labs] renamed itself Lucent Technologies and launched its separation with an initial public offering of stock issued in April 1996. The spin-off was completed in September 1996 when AT&T distributed its shares of Lucent to AT&T shareholders.
  2. The 1984 Telephone Companies-- Where They Are Now by SEE · · Score: 3, Informative

    With the breakup of AT&T in 1984, the telephone market largely looked like the following:

    Long Distance:
    AT&T
    MCI
    Sprint
    Qwest

    Local Telephone:
    Nynex (Baby Bell)
    Bell Atlantic (Baby Bell)
    BellSouth (Baby Bell)
    Ameritech (Baby Bell)
    Southwestern Bell (Baby Bell)
    U.S. West (Baby Bell)
    Pacbell (Baby Bell)
    GTE (independent local carrier)

    I mean, there were other minor players, but those were the biggies.

    Today, if this merger goes through, these players are now parts of:

    SBC (AT&T, Southwestern Bell, Pacbell, and Ameritech)
    Verizon (Nynex, Bell Atlantic, and GTE)
    Qwest (Qwest, U.S. West)
    WorldCom (MCI)
    Sprint (Sprint)
    BellSouth (BellSouth)

  3. Re:Let's not slide back. Or should we? by drmerope · · Score: 3, Informative

    "Having said that, when I lived in Houston (GTE then Verizon when I was there) I was always mildly amused to see that I had to pay a few cents extra for the privilege of having touch-tone dialing. Yes, touch tone dialing was an additional cost paid service."

    The reason for this was regulatory. When the exchanges are upgraded to support services like Touch Tone or Caller-ID, every line supports those services--the capital cost is already sunk.

    However, the tariff regulations did not permit the teleco to simply active said service and charge the extra cent per customer unformly--even though the capability was already there.

    This was done because their was a congressional mandate to keep the cost of basic POTS service low--and infact often below operational costs. Thus, the oddity of being charged for touch-tone service. It was a little congressional welfare tax snuck into your telephone bill to keep the minimum cost low.