Ma Bell is Back

brass1 writes Ma Bell is back. It seems that for the purposes of branding, SBC is changing its name to AT&T once the acquisition is complete. Meanwhile, a great force and a high pitched whining sound has been reported from Judge Greene's grave as he spins at nearly 10K RPM."

Comments

They aren't as dangerous as before

[erroneus]

I think that with the tremendous variety of communications options available today, they simply aren't as dangerous to the consumer as they once were. While companies can certainly get "too big" and I love to hate all the big guys, I think this will all be just fine... I don't need or subscribe to their service and I don't plan to.

Re:They aren't as dangerous as before

[Krellan]

There's a reason for why they charge $50 to click "OK".

The $50-or-so price is cast in stone, as a tariffed rate!

Back about 15 years ago, when the price was merely $33 for flipping a switch (no fancy "OK" buttons to click here), a family friend of ours got a phone line activated.

Turns out, the wires were too ratty/old to hold voice service: static, buzzing, dropped calls, and the like.

The phone company came out, and ran over ONE MILE of new wiring, including telephone poles, through a forest, just to reach his house!

This was in a small little rural town, as you might have guessed. No way would he have been able to pay the true market rate for the labor/equipment to install the phone line, which I guess would have cost at least $10,000.00 if he had hired a crew to do it privately. "Universal service" at work!

This is why you're paying $50 for them to hit a button: the cost to you, and essentially everybody else, was $0.05 for 15 seconds of a call-center employee's time. It's just these rare exceptions, that bring the average subsidized rate up to $50 or so.

And, no, the phone company will NOT give him DSL service today, nor install a second voice line. I wonder why? :)

I don't care what they call it, it ain't Ma Bell

[wiredog]

And thank $Deity for that. Ma Bell did quite a bit of good, Bell Labs being a prime example, but the modern internet/www/etc wouldn't have been possible without the breakup. At least there's some competition, driving down prices and increasing usability, today.

The 80's are back

[heroine]

The last time AT&T was on TV commercials, QA engineers could afford houses, people could retire at 50, and gas was $0.89. Having the word AT&T back on TV is going to remind a lot of people of better times.

It's about time they did something to improve their situation by going back to a name from the 80's. When you're a front end to an Indian outsourcing business whose only product is your name, changing your name has a big impact. Hopefully they'll still have enough money to buy the rasterline globe trademark back from Infosys.

times change

[RealProgrammer]

Like IBM, and maybe soon Microsoft, the conditions which allowed the phone monopoly to exist no longer are present. A single company can't dominate the computer industry the way IBM did, nor the communications industry the way AT&T did.

How long before Microsoft lose its monopoly on desktop computing software?

Re:"Ma Bell" should be called "Big Brother" instea

[Kainaw]

Sounds like a great idea! We don't want Big Brother spying on us, so lets run out and get cell phones that will allow Big Brother to track where we are every second of the day since we will always have the phone with us. That will show those Big Brothers!!!

Re:"Ma Bell" should be called "Big Brother" instea

[Krach42]

After I realized that the telephone company had somehow mis-connected my wife's telephone to the 911 emergency number while the telephones were out of order and repairmen were out working on the lines because of the recent thunderstorms

Can you say accident?

Last week the police came to my home and demanded immediate entry (they said they didn't need a warrant for "a case like this") to search for anyone in need of help that may have called.

This would be a good thing. Warrants aren't required when there is reasonable cause. Having a 911 call placed from your line without an answer is reasonable cause.

You had a bad experience, no reason to think that there's some grand conspiracy to have the police check your house.

I had a situation where at college, a friend and I were sitting playing video games with our door open, when two cops came up, and one used the door for cover with his gun drawn and said something along the lines of don't worry, stay back... just plain "stay out of our way." Some other guy had talked to his girlfriend, she was scared he might kill himself, and that he might have a gun, and thus called the local cops where she was at, who called the local cops where we were at, who responded like they did.

I'd say the guy were pissed (he didn't have a gun, and wasn't going to kill himself; his girlfriend was just overreacting). Do I think there was some grand conspiracy for the cops to have come by my room with guns drawn? Hell know, coincidence and accident man. Nothing more, nothing less.

Theory of corporations

[Alioth]

It's sort of a bit like the opposite of the Big Bang really. You take a giant corporation, break it up into lots of little ones, and eventually it gravitationally collapses back into the original giant corporation (and gets broken up, rinse, lather repeat). I bet if they re-broke AT&T again tomorrow, in 20 years it will have re-formed, just like the Bad Terminator from Terminator 2.

What does this mean for San Fran and SBC Park?

[Aqua OS X]

OK, so the SF Giants no longer play in "Pacific Bell Park"... we JUST changed the name to "SBC Park" after the recent Pac Bell / SBC merger.

So, now it's probably going to be "AT&T Park ?!" This is ridiculous. I miss the days when our stadiums had names that didn't change. The 49ers have played in Candlestick, which was renamed "3COM," which has now been renamed "Monster" Park. And now the Giant's stadium is getting it's 3rd name as well. uhh. Time to change the freeway signs AGAIN.

And on a side note, is it possible for me to change my Slashdot nickname to "Pepsi Presents AquaOSX?"

Re:Ma Bell? Yo no entiendo

[Shakrai]

It was basically the phone company for the United States "back in the day". I think I remember thier motto to be:

Go ahead and mock the Bell System. They did step over the line quite a few times. But I don't really think the hodgepodge of companies that have come since have given a rat ass about the customer either. In fact, thanks to telecommunications deregulation, carriers no longer need to worry about pesky little details like quality of service, uptime or redundancy.

How pathetic was it that virtually every single cell tower went down during the Northeast Blackout, yet Verizon and the other POTS providers kept humming along as though nothing had happened. Apparently the cellular providers can't be bothered with fancy new technology like batteries, generators and UPSes. In fact the last time we had a disaster around these parts the local phone carriers (Verizon and Frontier) went around and installed generators into all the central offices to keep things humming until electrical power was restored. There was zero downtime of POTS services. I'll wadger that in that same scenario your cell company would either deny that there was a problem or tell you that they were "working on it" and act annoyed at having to talk to you.

In fact, barring Acts of God that destroyed infrastructure (Hurricanes or Drunk Drivers) I can't ever call picking up a landline phone and not hearing a sweet dial tone. The only gripe I've ever had with my local carrier has been the left hand (customer service) not knowing what the right hand (repair) is doing. I've never had a complaint with the reliability. And unlike all the solutions that have come since I still have a Governmental agency (the PSC) looking out for me.

DoD was against the breakup of Ma Bell for a reason.

WTF?

[Moonwick]

"Meanwhile, a great force and a high pitched whining sound has been reported from Judge Greene's grave as he spins at nearly 10K RPM."

Or maybe Judge Greene realizes that the telecommunications business has changed dramatically in twenty years and that 'Ma Bell' would no longer have a monopoly, so he doesn't actually give a shit. But don't let that keep you from sensationalizing a story, slashdot!

Re:Ma Bell? Yo no entiendo - SHORT VERSION

[JWW]

It didn't work.

Really? Many people like to claim that the breakup of AT&T meant nothing. But I have to ask. "Do you have a cell phone?"

I don't see any reason the the telephone monopoly would have ever gladly spawned the cellular telephone network. They might have developed it yes, but they would have had no impetus to provide good coverage and reasonable rates.

Any scenario I could imagine where AT&T was the only phone company providing cell service doesn't look good at all.

Your tax dollars at work ladies and gentlemen

[scronline]

So much money was spent to declare an anti-trust/monopoly against the telco giant...now we're just letting it all fall right back into place.

Here's another great one for you, the remedy for the anti-trust/monopoly wasn't really a remedy. Each "baby bell" was still a monopoly in it's region. You don't have a choice what phone carrier to use if you're in SBC's region, same with Verizon, SWBell, whatever.

What NEEDED to be done is one company handles all the infrastructure. They wouldn't be allowed to do ANYTHING other than maintain the lines...that's it....nothing more....ever....period. With an oversight commitee or something to keep them from price gouging or taking advantage of that situation. Then they sell access to those lines to anyone who wanted it. You would then have your choice of phone carriers anywhere in the US as well as internet providers over DSL without having to STILL pay SBC/Verizon/whoever for use of their phone line, plus transport of the DSL.

I can't tell you how many people HATE SBC and refuse to do ANY business with them. But because you have to have an SBC line to get DSL if you're in SBC's region, you're just S.O.L. How is that NOT a monopoly? I mean really.

Re:Your tax dollars at work ladies and gentlemen

[scronline]

Sure you have a choice, but only because the feds MADE them open up the lines to outside companies. But the thing to remember here is that SBC/Verizon leverage things to their advantage because they own the copper in the ground.

For example, with SBC, I pay $11.50/mth per "primary" DSL. That's my cost to SBC to get a customer to my line. Now I say to my LINE because that doesn't automatically bring it to my network like it does with SBC. We also have to pay for a circuit to go from their network to ours. Right now, that's roughly costing me about $10 per user. Then we add on internet bandwidth costs, server costs, and support costs. There's absolutely NO way I can offer DSL to a customer for $14.95/mth even if it's only for 6 months. It costs me about $27-30/mth to supply that DSL.

They don't have to pay for the additional line to their network since it's already on their network. They also subsidize that $14.95 with additional phone service fees. To get that $14.95 you have to also have Caller ID, and Call Waiting at the least.

Basically the same thing happens with these other phone providers. But to offer you service so much cheaper, they're doing it by pretty much killing off their profit margin. Basically, they're probably only making $2/mth off your phone service, but they plan make up for that in sheer volume. However they're burning through their investors' money until they reach the break even point.

But then we have to take into consideration the recent FCC ruling that DSL is considered a data service even though it's offered over phone lines. Believe me, SBC and Verizon WILL find a way to try and twist that to their benefit.

The problem boils down to the people who make, judge, enforce, and interpret laws don't really know what's going on in the industry. They may have a little knowledge...enough to be dangerous. Or they're just thinking from a purely political, business, and/or financial standpoint.

anyway, sorry, I digressed considerably there. Point is sure it's possible, but those companies have to pay through the nose to have access to those same services that can't/aren't subsidized from somewhere else. So what will usually happen if they're cutting the price so low like that is service/support ends up suffering.