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

So what was the point

[DaveInAustin]

Of the original breakup anyway? The baby bells are buying each other and Ma bell.

Re:Headline should read...

[Spazntwich]

Well, in English, we have certain things called "tenses."

Tense is generally used to indicate a timeframe relative to the present when something happened, is happening, or will happen.

Notice how in the article, they state that AT&T is planning on acquiring Bellsouth. If you read further, you'll notice other sources say the FCC approval process could easily take around a year.

Because, if this is going to happen, it will be happening in about a year, saying "AT&T acquires Bellsouth" creates a tense error, and if you want to really get technical, yes, it is a fairly big deal especially if you consider how significant the error is.

Re:Inevitable.

[squiggleslash]

You need to charter one ship across the Atlantic to compete with the East India Company. It's a one-off, and you'll make a profit.

You need to lay an entire network to compete with an established phone company. The phone company you're competing with already has laid, and paid for, that company. So while you take twenty years to build your network and 40 to recoup your investment, you'll be somehow raising that money from customers who have the choice between your network, and the cheaper incumbent.

How the FUCK do you compete with that? Are you on the same planet? There's absolutely nothing whatsoever you can do. If you promise "better service", the incumbent has plenty of time to improve their services. If you promise enhanced features, the incumbent can roll that out to all their customers before you've laid the lines in a single street.

This isn't a myth. It's real. It's why nobody's building fully competitive networks, even in countries where it's encouraged. In Britain, the only competition was from cable TV companies, who were only able to get their networks built because BT was banned from selling television services. And I've never heard of someone asking to build a competing network and being told "no" by any American government. Why? Because nobody wants to.

The only "competition" we'll see in the short term is from the cable companies. In the long term, we don't even know for sure that the cable companies and the telephone companies will not merge anyway. And we already know that a duopoly isn't enough to ensure buyer-focussed products.

We need regulation. And we cannot wait for libertarian utopias to be proven idiotic, especially since I've never come across a libertarian who hasn't find something government related to blame any failure of deregulation upon. The wires should work for us.

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

[Doc Ruby]

Bush is the president - responsible for running the country. The cruel irony is that Bush can be described only as irresponsible.

Bush was warned about Katrina's risk of flooding New Orleans, went on vacation instead, and resurfaced long enough to lie about no one anticipating the levees would fail.

He was warned about Global Warming, and instead has his administration gagging NASA scientists while presiding over the biggest increases in Greenhouse emissions ever. Now the ice is melting even faster than the scientists predicted.

Bush took office with Microsoft ruled a monopoly, and his Justice Department let them continue unabated. The years since have seen continuing abuses, but only foreign courts are doing anything about it, because Bush won't do anything to protect the market. A market that has remained unsafe for new competitors during his stewardship.

Bush was warned that Iraq would collapse into civil war, and now acts like its just a nasty surprise - while he isn't denying it's happening. He got a daily intelligence brief titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US", after repeated warnings from Clinton's outgoing team and Clarke, the counterterrorism administrator who stayed on. Then he acted surprised when his deprioritization collected the 9/11/2001 planebombings. He was warned before N. Korea got the bomb, before Iran got the bomb, that cutting taxes on the rich would keep the regular economy moribund, that screwing with the Mideast would keep oil prices sky-high.

So maybe you know something about Bush and the Superbowl that we haven't heard yet. Anonymous Cheney, is that you? Shouldn't you be at target practice, or something?