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.

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.

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