New AT&T Acquires BellSouth

spune writes "Only months after SBC's acquisition of AT&T last November, the newly rechristened telecom has announced that it plans to buy fellow Baby Bell BellSouth Inc, of Atlanta, Georgia for $67 billion. This action by AT&T will consolidate more than half of the original Bell System into a single entity, leaving only Verizon and Qwest as remaining Bell family competitors. Analysts predict this deal will be approved by the FCC with only minor restrictions on the new company, which will serve residences and businesses from California to Florida."

Comments

Headline should read...

[Spazntwich]

"AT&T puts into motion plans to acquire Bellsouth."

Hurray for fucking retard editors who can't be bothered to check headlines for accuracy.

Let them consolidate

[MikeRT]

Then they'll be regulated as a monopoly because no one will be able to argue with a straight face that there is a free market for telecoms. With monopoly status, they won't be able to argue that they are being forced to cut their prices down to unsustainable levels. Cheap broadband is nice and all, but if it's too cheap they aren't making enough money to support their infrastructure which is why access sucks in most of the country. As I've been saying, I'd rather they charge me $100/month for real 3mpbs up AND down than charge me $15-$40 a month for 3mpbs with an invisible cap on its monthly use. It makes more sense for them too. If they provide the bandwidth each month, Apple and others can provide the content which makes their service worth paying a premium for.

Whining about it won't accomplish anything...

[DaedalusLogic]

Where is the line to start the fight?

Fax or Call your Congressional Representatives.

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/cdirectory/index.html

Drop these guys a line.

http://ftc.gov/

If you are intelligent and well spoken... call your local news and make a case for this being a bad idea.

Or, if you want to be an ineffective lump, go ahead and sit back and shut up... If you're going to complain, for god's sake aim your mouth in the right direction.

I challenge every voting Slashdot reader to actually do something about this one and send a fax in tomorrow. E-mail can be filtered and ignored, but choking the phone lines that serve them will serve as an ironic way of showing how unhappy we are with the prospect of this merger.

I am a customer of these organizations and I want this stopped in it's tracks.

will I get three bills for service I don't have

[anagama]

Four years ago I made the mistake of signing up w/ AT&T. I cancled and paid off my bill (something like $14). Now, every four months I start getting bills, then the calls. I ignore them till they catch me. Then I ask for immediate acceleration. If I don't get it I curse a little (I've been doing this 3x/yr for 4 years now -- I'm not normally an asshole). Eventually someone says they see the problem and correct it. Every time I'm told this. And inevitably, the bills come back. Last time, when the person was through "fixing" it (I've since started getting bills again), she asked if I was interested in signing up for service. I laughed.

Re:Wait a minute

[lordkuri]

Today, if you walked into a RBOC and asked to buy/lease local loops or rackspace, they'd have to let you.

Not since 2002, that was overturned. source

Re:Cincinnati Bell

[Anonymous Coward]

This action by AT&T will consolidate more than half of the original Bell System into a single entity, leaving only Verizon and Qwest as remaining Bell family competitors.

Cincinnati Bell will be quite surprised to learn that it no longer exists.

Possibly the summary was referring only to companies that were part of the original AT&T and were spun off
as RBOCs way back when. Cincinnati Bell, despite it's name, was not actually part of AT&T; it was an independent company who licensed the right to provide service for the Cincinnati area.

Great Wikipedia chart of Bell System companies

[massysett]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Rbocs.gif

If Verizon buys Qwest, we're down to two phone companies!

Re:They're trying to get it done quick.

[Baricom]

Fortunately, I'm a cable subscriber, so I'm not too worried about any direct effects...yet. However, BellSouth's position on net neutrality isn't much better than AT&T's. They start by proclaiming themselves strong supporters of net neutrality, then go on to define exceptions to that support:

However, BellSouth opposes those proponents of net neutrality who seek to render DSL service as nothing more than a "dumb pipe." Under BellSouth's view of net neutrality, the essential consumer protection is clear disclosure in the service plan agreement...Broadband networks providers should be able to manage bandwidth...[and] should be able to curb network usage (such as peer-to-peer file sharing) that consumes a disproportionate amount of bandwidth and may adversely impact other network users....Broadband network providers should be able to offer different plans that feature enhanced levels of service or that promote their own brand names and products or the services of selected vendors. For example, BellSouth should be able to enter into arrangements with content providers by which the content provider pays for special treatment, such as preferential listing or faster downloads from that provider's website or receiving a higher quality of service. (emphasis and length-editing mine)

Re:Problem with that logic...

[W. A. Dragunov]

While that maybe true. SBC now AT&T Inc. have 60% control of Cingular, which bought AT&T Wireless. Bellsouth owns the other 40%.

Well

[einhverfr]

It is hardly "half" of the old Bell system. Remember that in its heyday, the Bell System included Western Electric Corporation (WEC, own and run mostly by AT&T), Nippon Electric Corporation (NEC, which WEC owned a majority share in), Bell Labs, and a number of other organizations.

Yes it is disturbing. Yes, it is threatening. But no it is not even close to half of what the Bell Network used to be.

I used to work at ATT in AntiTrust Litigation

[Ralph Spoilsport]

I worked as a paralegal "research analyst" working directly for the lawyers involved, and I can assure all that the break up of ATT was not the defeat of some evil megacorp at the hands of some valiant heroic upstarts. It was an ugly battle by giant corporations, all of whom were evil Evil EVIL, when they weren't being incompetent and utterly stupid.

Did ATT deny MCI, Sprint, ITT, sonitrol, and everyone else involved access to their lines?

Yep.

Was MCI a giant grasping hellhole bent not on defeating ATT, but becoming ATT?

Yep.

Was Sprint an incompetent bunch of losers who couldn't find their own butts with a flashlight, a map, and both hands at the ready?

Yep.

Was Sonitrol along for the ride?

Yep.

Was ITT a vast corrupt corporation run by thugs?

Yep.

It's all there in the evidence - which fills a freakin' warehouse somewhere. Representatives of ITT threating people, Sprint incapable of figuring out how to bill their customers, MCI pulling all kinds of nasty shenanigans on ATT and other providers - and ream after ream of circuit listings noting that the denial of service was for "Reasons Unknown" - it was ugly. Truly nasty. There were no good guys in that case.

And now ATT wants to rebuild its empire. Well, it's a different world now with VOIP, Cellphones, cable modems, etc. Even if they do corner the DSL market, there's another market out there...

I don't if I should laugh or cry for all my wasted effort in that messy trial.

RS

Re:Problem with that logic...

[Widowwolf]

Try again. This is how it went..AT&T wireless was 100% controlled by ATT, Cingular was 60% controlled by SBC and 40 % controlled by bell south. Cingular wireless bought out ATT wireless completely, and the company, still called Cingular wireless, still is owned 60% by SBC and 40% by Bellsouth. Then comes a long a merger between SBC and ATT, which brought the company now to be named AT&T (all lowercase letters). Now at&t wants to buy out Bellsouth, land and the 40% that they own of Cingular Wireless. Which makes at&t(formerly SBC (changed its named due to at&t brand having more name recognition)in 100% control of Cingular Wireless(which is probably going to be named changed to at&t wireless(the only reason that it is still called Cingular is because Bellsouth fought to not have to put all the money into what is called "rebranding" the name in the first place), all of the old AT&T, all of Bellsouth, and all of their original areas that the old SBC covered). You want to know why I know this. I work for what is now at&t, and my wife works for the current Cingular call center)

Re:I say GOOD

[Valdrax]

It's not a "ludacrious"[sic] statement. A simple Google search gives you leads to find the Bell System Memorial site which has a page on the very subject. There you can read fliers advertising the changes to allow you to buy your phone and see the old rates of between $1.00-3.25 per phone.

Next time, take the word of someone who is old enough to have actually been there. I'm also barely old enough to remember rented phones and the Bell System Property tag on them. My grandmother kept hers for years.

Re:They're trying to get it done quick.

[Bogtha]

A Democracy is a system of government where the citizens vote directly on the laws that govern them.

That may have been true once, but language changes over time. In common use, the word "democracy" includes democratic republics such as the USA. Don't take my word for it, of course:

Democracy:

Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives. [Emphasis mine.]

PS: While we're being pedantic, apostrophes are not used for personal pronouns. "...has been from it's inception..." should be "...has been from its inception...".

Re:Wait a minute

[evilviper]

Ma Bell charged, what, a dollar a minute or something along those lines? I don't know how important it is for it to stay broken up now (keeping in mind that cable can provide internet access), but it pretty obviously brought down long distance prices back when that actually mattered a lot (no widely available email in those days).

No, the continual advance of technology brought down long-distance prices... In fact, it was the microwave communications systems, which AT&T invented, which made it possible for 3rd parties to provide long-distance service in the first place. Without that, companies like MCI would have needed to actually lay copper lines for each phone call across the entire country...

However, that's somewhat besides the point, because I was refering to local telco service... Long distance service can still be made competitive.

Re:Nationalisation

[FrostedChaos]

You forgot "food".

Oh, oops, that's right. Food is provided by many different providers, suppliers, packagers. Why didn't it make your list of important things? It's only with the establishment of the FDA and other redistribution and regulation agencies that corporate Agriculture has been able to consolidate and create monopolies.

Gee, there we go again! Government intrusion creates the very problems of consolidation and monopoly that get blamed on the "free market", long after the "free" part has been regulated out of existence.

Actually, I'm kind of happy that there's an FDA around, setting minimum food standards and prosecuting those who don't meet them. Our FDA isn't as good as the agencies they have in a lot of other countries, and a lot of dubious food gets by, but it's still better than nothing. If you don't believe this, try reading Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle," to see what kinds of things they used to do to food back under the free market. Here's a hint... it turns out that lead chromate is cheaper than leavening in biscuits... and sawdust makes a great filler for sausages. You don't want to think about these things. The best part was, nobody knew what was in the food. There was no requirement for the companies to disclose this, because there was no government regulation of any kind.

Also, the free market naturally leads to harmful monopolies, "boom and bust" cycles, de-skilling and mechanization, and a lot of other bad things. It's just like any other incentive system-- it works well for some things but in others you need a different incentive system. This isn't a matter of philosophy-- it's a matter of economic fact. Put down that Ayn Rand and start reading the work of some serious economists.