|
Home >
Cell Phone News >
AT&T Buys BellSouth for $67 Billion |
 |
|
AT&T Buys BellSouth for $67 Billion
|
|
Mon Mar 06, 2006 9:42 am
AT&T announced an agreement to buy BellSouth for $67 billion. AT&T currently owns 60 percent of Cingular, the No. 1 wireless carrier, while BellSouth owns the remaining 40 percent. As part of the deal, AT&T would assume full control of Cingular.
The merger will streamline the ownership and operations of Cingular Wireless. The new company will be more innovative, nimble and efficient, providing benefits to customers by combining the Cingular, BellSouth and AT&T networks into a single fully integrated wireless and wireline Internet Protocol network offering a full range of advanced solutions.
As a result, the combined company will be better able to speed the convergence of new and improved services for consumers and businesses, and embrace the industry's shift to Internet Protocol network-based technologies.
The long-awaited deal would give the combined company a national long-distance telephone and data network, residential customers stretching from Florida to California and business customers comprising more than half of the Fortune 1000.
AT&T expects the acquisition to save it $2 billion annually, partially from job cuts and combining the two work forces.
 News Feed |
Add to: Bloglines |
MyYahoo! |
Google |
Facebook |
Post a comment and discuss this story with other readers.
| 1. Posted by H82typ |
Mon Mar 06, 2006 11:41 am |
Will C/S and service be any better? Hell, it cant get much worse!
|
 |
| 2. Posted by stevie53 |
Mon Mar 06, 2006 8:13 pm |
Maybe they will be able to stock more phones,I was going to switch to another service,but maybe I'll wait........
|
|
| 3. Posted by stevie53 |
Mon Mar 06, 2006 8:15 pm |
I hope their service gets better too,they are at the bottom of the totem pole
|
|
| 4. Posted by purplepasion |
Tue Mar 07, 2006 12:43 am |
1. Posted on Mon Mar 06, 2006 10:41 am by H82typ
Will C/S and service be any better? Hell, it cant get much worse!
 I am covering my face in shame. I must admit that cingular sucks as a wireless company. The company only focuses on the best service in metropolitan areas. Now, I have heard some horror stories about Cingular's service. I listen to them daily. Working there is no walk in the park. ATT had much better service pre-merger becuase they treated their workers a crap load better than Cingular ever will. 
Point of the story: A few unhappy reps make our service what it is, horrible. Hopefully one day, you will call in and get a competent representative who takes pride in what they do, even if they hate doing it.
Cingular Wireless Customer Care Rep, Loyal Tmobile customer
|
|
| 5. Posted by PunkRock |
Wed Mar 08, 2006 4:48 am |
I heard they were going to cut down the workforce? Anyone know who's getting cut?
|
|
| 6. Posted by purplepasion |
Wed Mar 08, 2006 7:50 pm |
 Cingular's workforce will hardly be affected by the job cuts. AT&T is doing most of the cutting. They were planning to cut 25,000 of jobs before the announced merger and are happy to cut even more jobs. That doesn't mean Cingular employees are stick around long. When cingular and at&t first merged as a company, people started dropping like flies. People quit becuase they were afraid of change. Same thing is going to happen now.
Recap:
at&t and cingular = at&t
at&t and bellsouth= we dont know yet. Most likely AT&T 
|
|
| 7. Posted by elmo01 |
Thu Mar 09, 2006 9:08 am |
the new company name will be AT&T... branding rollout date is yet to be determined...
|
|
| 8. Posted by cementmaker |
Fri Mar 10, 2006 3:23 am |
wow 67 billion $ is heck a lot of money!
|
|
| 9. Posted by H82typ |
Mon Mar 13, 2006 11:55 am |
Wow! my signal is stronger already! Maybe now I can get rid of my tdma phone!
|
|
| 10. Posted by dprestpn |
Mon Mar 13, 2006 5:12 pm |
I worked for BellSouth for 5 years in svc and let me say that was a nightmare . How the people are treated, the monthly objectives that you have to make, I was harrassed and was put out on leave from my OB/GYN for I was so stressed I was a risk of losing our 3rd child. I hope that AT&T (formerly SBC) knows what they are getting into & I hope they clean house with management, for they are crazy! If customers only really knew how they treated their employees they'd disconnect everything! It's a shame for I was in SVC and about 3 years ago the company quit caring about SVC and just selling things whether the customers needed it or not. I'm ashamed to see what has happened to them. I loved what I did, was very competent, however the company/managers didn't look at that--they want dumb people who can sell and get the whiners off the phone. Let's play pass the buck--that's the motto!
Cingular really has gotten better, if you get a rep in Ashland KY I believe Jefferson City TN, you have hit the jackpot  for they are awesome and will take their time with you. As for more phones being offered, maybe just in the wireless stores altogether. For at BST we never had more than 4 in our gate and it was the ones that had the least amount of issues. Can't damage the good name with a bad product! 
Granted they are paying 67 billion  , however BST has 22 Billion  of debt too! The call centers are called BellHell  , however the pay is too good once you've been there so long. Once I came back from maternity leave they let me go after being there 3 minutes--trying to blame it on some order that my supervisor did with me 6 months prior. Don't know about that but does not give me a warm fuzzy feeling about how they do business.
My hat is off to AT&T and I hope that it will return to the glory days of Ma Bel--then we as consumers will be better off 
Oh yeah FYI, job cuts have started at BellSouth already. At lot of management is getting the boot as of April 1st! Trust me most of them do nothing anyways!
|
|
| 11. Posted by rudyb28 |
Mon Mar 27, 2006 5:40 pm |
Now that At&T is buying back cingular will all the former At&t customers be able to get all of the perks back???Instead of just the cingular customers. Like phones that work with the At&t sim card and updated Technology??
|
|
| 12. Posted by elmo01 |
Tue Mar 28, 2006 8:54 am |
probabaly not...
the accounts are being transferred to the Cingular billing system... so in effect the bill will say ATT (eventually), but it will be a cingular service
|
|
| 13. Posted by allworknoplay |
Wed Mar 29, 2006 4:08 pm |
my freind told that he is having a horrible time.the reason is that his wife is working in bell south for 100 hours a week and getting paid 40 hours--
why bell south is taking much work and exploiting software people--
this is happenning in birmingham and because of this people are not coming forward to join here and many are quitting because of horrible working conditions.
|
|
| 14. Posted by FlyerTDL |
Sun Apr 02, 2006 1:52 am |
AT&T, Inc. (SBC) buying Bell South I think is going to cause headaches for a while. Least of which being at Cingular.
Face it, that is virtually the only reason that the "new" AT&T is buying Bell South, b/c that is the company's cash-cow.
Cingular accounted for a third of all of Bell South's revenue last year, more than any other of their divisions. SBC, (new AT&T) IMHO, is fighting to get a larger customer base b/c they are loosing customers in other areas of the companies (@ Bell South and SBC) to HEAVY competition, namely VOIP for their wire line customers, and of course those that are just dumping land lines entirely for wireless. Which I think is just nuts, but thats just me.
Something that I find upsetting about all of this, is that once AT&T (SBC) purchases Bell South, that they are going to spend millions if not BILLIONS more dollars re-branding their wireless service AGAIN, right after they just spent a HUGE amount re-branding after they bought the original AT&T Wireless. Now us "tru-blues" will be back under our old color again , albeit a different umbrella. (They will still be "Cingular Plans")
This is going to be a CS rep's worst nightmare.
I feel sorry for you guys, especially those of you that worked at the original ATTWS, y'all must feel confused.
|
|
| 15. Posted by H82typ |
Mon Apr 03, 2006 12:06 pm |
*sigh* Modern life is so confusing... This deal has _nothing_ to do with ATTW or Cingular Wireless... or am I not reading this properly...
|
|
| 16. Posted by FlyerTDL |
Mon Apr 03, 2006 9:03 pm |
The point that I was trying to get across, is that Cingular Wireless is THE reason why SBC is buying Bell South. 
(Which SBC was Southwestern Bell, and since having purchased its former parent AT&T Corp. <The original "Ma-Bell"> SBC has decided to use the more recognized name and created AT&T Inc.) Confuesd yet? 
The "New AT&T", which is the old SBC, is buying Bell South in order to acquire full control of Cingular Wireless. Which up to this point, has been a joint venture between the two companies. SBC owning 60% and Bell South owning 40%.
Cingular has been the biggest revenue maker for Bell South, and while granted SBC owned a greater percentage of Cingular than Bell South, the execs over at the "New AT&T" are just greedy, imo, and want to be making 100% profits from Cingular instead of just 60%.
For the record, this is how ATTWS plays into this:
The ORGINAL AT&T Wireless belonged to the old "Ma-Bell". It was then spun off into its own company in 2001, then in 2004 Cingular Wireless bought ATTWS, but a lot of the CS reps from the the old ATTWS stayed, and became Cingular employees.
Now that the "New AT&T" has been formed, the old SBC execs are trying to bring all of their divisions under one umbrella name: AT&T. So once SBC buys Bell South, they will re-brand Cingular Wireless as AT&T Wireless. This will be a "New AT&T Wireless" from the one that was bought 2yrs ago. It will still be "Cingular", but they are changing the name in order to "save money" on marketing, and to streamline their service brands and packages.
This entire ordeal is why I feel sorry for those CS reps who worked at the "Original ATTWS" that was bought buy Cingular. Now they have to retrain to be AT&T CS reps again, and on top of that, try explaining this entire thing to every customer calling in from the old ATTWS and tell them "no, you don't get to keep your old plans now, management just decided to use your old company's name."
See my point now? That is if you are not confused.
I tried to keep it as simple as possible.
|
|
| 17. Posted by H82typ |
Mon Apr 03, 2006 10:50 pm |
STOP!*covers ears*
|
|
| 18. Posted by FlyerTDL |
Tue Apr 04, 2006 1:18 am |
Well, you asked:
... am I not reading this properly...
I told.
Be carefull what you wish for, you just might get it, and I am very thorough.
Perhaps my previous post will answer some other people's questions concerning how this "merger" will impact them, or if they just wanted more information in general.
|
|
| 19. Posted by H82typ |
Tue Apr 04, 2006 10:44 am |
lol yeah, I know! tyvm 4 the info though
|
|
| 20. Posted by justin22 |
Tue Apr 04, 2006 2:11 pm |
Well, you asked:
... am I not reading this properly...
I told.
Be carefull what you wish for, you just might get it, and I am very thorough.
Perhaps my previous post will answer some other people's questions concerning how this "merger" will impact them, or if they just wanted more information in general.
and what news/media source did you get this info from?
|
|
| 21. Posted by Sir_GoAtaLoT |
Sat Apr 08, 2006 1:41 am |
T-Mobile is the next to be brought out by one of the big companies
|
|
| 22. Posted by FlyerTDL |
Sun Apr 16, 2006 12:26 am |
and what news/media source did you get this info from?
To answer your question:
Here are a selection of sources that I used to base what I wrote. Please note that one of them comes "straight from the horse's mouth" as it is from AT&T's own website.
http://www.forbes.com/business/feeds/ap/2006/03/05/ap2571298.html
http://www.phonescoop.com/news/item.php?n=1621
http://att.sbc.com/gen/press-room?pid=4800&cdvn=news&newsarticleid=22140&phase=check
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/CNBC/Dispatch/060306markets.aspx
These are just a couple, and as for the histories of the companies, go to Wikipedia.
Now as for the direction that the mentioned companies are going, what I wrote was just my own inference, voiced as opinion, based on what I have read on the Internet.
This is a forum after all. You know, where you can voice your opinions. Or was I mistaken? 
BTW, honestly, does my interpretation of things seem that far off base?  :
I invite anyone to respond to that, b/c I am curious as to what you think.
Does it help anyone get a clearer picture of what is going on with these companies?
|
|
| 23. Posted by prof |
Wed Jan 10, 2007 1:34 am |
does anyone if at&t is going to start making phones and sim cards again or it doesnt pay to wait around and i should just switch to cingular
|
|
| 24. Posted by SLVRLVR |
Sat Jan 20, 2007 4:57 pm |
does anyone if at&t is going to start making phones and sim cards again or it doesnt pay to wait around and i should just switch to cingular
AT&T does not make phones or SIMS. Neither does Cingular. I know that there is a Cingular model phone, but it is made by someone else and given the Cingular name.
|
|
| 25. Posted by Malibu21 |
Sun Jan 21, 2007 5:45 am |
T-Mobile is the next to be brought out by one of the big companies
Isn't Tmobile owned by Dusche Telekom in Europe, a large corp if im not mistaken? It's huge in Europe, and I'm Huge in Japan.
|
Post a comment and discuss this story with other readers.
|
|
|
|
