| Todd Allcock 2008-01-24, 10:33 pm |
| At 24 Jan 2008 13:58:41 -0700 Tinman wrote:
> It's not that black and white. The merger that was finalized in late
> December 2006 was between AT&T and Bellsouth. Bellsouth owned half of AT&T.
Man, we REALLY need to define "AT&T" better! ;-)
BellSouth didn't own half of AT&T, they owned half (actually 40% to
SBC's 60%) of Cingular Wireless.
SBC bought what was left of AT&T (just the long distance and VoIP
"CallVantage" company- they'd already divested their wireless and hardware
divisions prior.) Essentially SBC bought the LD, VoIP, name, "blue sky,"
Death Star logo, etc.
>
> See above (it was more than that--two parents coming together so to speak).
Yes- the two owners of Cingular became one- that really didn't affect
Cingular's operations any. When I say "it was simply a name change" I was
speaking from Cingular's perspective. Their ownership didn't really change-
instead of being owned by a separate SBC/AT&T and BellSouth, they're owned
by a merged SBC and BellSouth.
> The rebranding came about in mid-January, 2007, after the iPhone's
> announcement. In any event the company with whom Apple negotiated was not
> AT&T (or maybe they did if they started early enough, but it would have
been
> ATTWS).
No, it was negotiated with Cingular wireless, which again, despite the
marriage of it's owners is essentially the same company, with the same top
brass.
> Please note it was your comment of "I'd agree with if this wasn't AT&T we
> were talking about" that triggered my reply. To me that comment implies
the
> AT&T of yore, which doesn't apply at all in this situation, nor was
"that"
> AT&T even involved in iPhone negotiations.
True- I should've specified "AT&T's Wireless divison" which is Cingular.
The AT&T of yore is no more (sort of- the now combined SBC, BellSouth and
AT&T Long Distance probaby represents 40% of the old Ma Bell! If they can
merge with Verizon someday, we'll all wonder why we broke them up in the
first place!) ;-)
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