AT&T wooing EchoStar

You're way off base here.

Connecting your own crap to the public switched network dates back to
the Carterfone decision. Long distance competition came about largely
because of the illegal (and I do mean illegal) Execunet service
offerred by Microwave Communiucations Inc (eventually MCI) - starting
with their Chicago to St Louis connection. AT&T was not a monopoly -
it was a regulated monopoly. As such its Bell Laboratories (nee Bell
Telephone Laboratories) pretty much paved the way for every single
electronic benefit you enjoy today. The kind of basic research done
at BTL cannt be afforded by companies today. It was the regulated
monopoly's guaranteed rate of return that allowed AT&T to pour the
huge bucks into research. Unfortunately, that regulated monopoly was
eliminated and we now have telephones that could never get to market
in the "old days" because of low quality and/or poor performance. The
breakup of the Bell System was a polital event.


On Sat, 29 Sep 2007 15:30:30 -0400, The Ghost of General Lee
wrote:

On Sat, 29 Sep 2007 15:14:16 -0400, "GB" wrote:

If you remember they were broke up because a dumb ass judge ruled they were
a monopoly, not that they were having any problems as a company. Most
agreed at the time it was a bad decision.

Yes, I was already an adult when that happened in 1984. And one had
nothing to do with the other. They were a monopoly, but their breakup
had little to do with their decline in customer service. And I
question your assertation that "most" people thought it was a bad
decision. It opened the door to lower cost long distance services and
the ability for customers to provide their own telephone equipment.

Let me explain a bit further...

At the time most DID think it was a bad judgement. Looking back we see that
this did indeed bring free enterprise to the tc industry. But look at
things today. AT&T has bought back many of the small "Bells" that was
broken up. "Bellsouth" as an example. AT&T is bigger today than ever.

It does make one wonder how things would be if the breakup had not occured.
"The Ghost of General Lee" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 29 Sep 2007 15:14:16 -0400, "GB" wrote:

If you remember they were broke up because a dumb ass judge ruled they
were
a monopoly, not that they were having any problems as a company. Most
agreed at the time it was a bad decision.

Yes, I was already an adult when that happened in 1984. And one had
nothing to do with the other. They were a monopoly, but their breakup
had little to do with their decline in customer service. And I
question your assertation that "most" people thought it was a bad
decision. It opened the door to lower cost long distance services and
the ability for customers to provide their own telephone equipment.

GB wrote:
Let me explain a bit further...

At the time most DID think it was a bad judgement. Looking back we see that
this did indeed bring free enterprise to the tc industry. But look at
things today. AT&T has bought back many of the small "Bells" that was
broken up. "Bellsouth" as an example. AT&T is bigger today than ever.

It does make one wonder how things would be if the breakup had not occured.
"The Ghost of General Lee" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 29 Sep 2007 15:14:16 -0400, "GB" wrote:

If you remember they were broke up because a dumb ass judge ruled they
were
a monopoly, not that they were having any problems as a company. Most
agreed at the time it was a bad decision.
Yes, I was already an adult when that happened in 1984. And one had
nothing to do with the other. They were a monopoly, but their breakup
had little to do with their decline in customer service. And I
question your assertation that "most" people thought it was a bad
decision. It opened the door to lower cost long distance services and
the ability for customers to provide their own telephone equipment.



You're confusing the old AT&T with the current at&t. After the breakup
of AT&T in 1984 into the many "baby bells", the remaining part of AT&T
contained parts such as long distance and Bell Labs. Along the way
since then, some more parts were spun off (for example Lucent, which
later spun off further companies like Avaya and Agere).

More recently AT&T Wireless was spun off from AT&T, which was recently
bought by Cingular (and they renamed the company at&t because of better
name recognition of the name at&t). Another part was about to be spun
off as AT&T Broadband but was brought up by Comcast. The remaining part
was bought be SBC (one of the baby bells) and they renamed the company
at&t again for name recognition (but this is not the same company as the
previous Cingular).

Richard Cranium wrote:
You're way off base here.

Connecting your own crap to the public switched network dates back to
the Carterfone decision. Long distance competition came about largely
because of the illegal (and I do mean illegal) Execunet service
offerred by Microwave Communiucations Inc (eventually MCI) - starting
with their Chicago to St Louis connection. AT&T was not a monopoly -
it was a regulated monopoly.

I don't know about illegal - they did get a common carrier license. But
there was another problem. ATT was, with the full agreement, and indeed
encouragement of the federal government, using their monopoly position
in long distance to charge higher rates in order to subsidize local
service to everyone (universal service), even when it wasn't otherwise
profitable for ATT. MCI, and later Sprint, just provided limited long
distance service. Since they didn't provide the expensive local service
to Nowheresville, they could charge less than ATT did for long distance.
This put ATT in a squeeze as they still and to provide universal
service, but could no longer afford to do so if they had to compete with
the others on long distance. The recognition of this problem, together
with the government's desire not to kill the competition in long
distance led to the breakup. The theory was that the ATT long lines
part of the Bell System could compete yet the Baby Bells would have
their monopoly and get paid (that subsidy again) by all long distance
carriers in order to maintain universal service.


--
- Stephen Fuld
(e-mail address disguised to prevent spam)

At 29 Sep 2007 22:40:24 +0000 Steve Jenkins wrote:

More recently AT&T Wireless was spun off from AT&T, which was
recently bought by Cingular (and they renamed the company at&t
because of better name recognition of the name at&t).

Yes and no- the old AT&T Wireless Services (ATTWS) spun off of AT&T
(the long-distance company) that Cingular bought was obligated
to stop using the AT&T name 18-months (maybe it was 24) after
divestiture. Only the Cingular acquisition stopped them from having
to rebrand themselves a few months later to who-knows-what.

Cingular did NOT acquire the rights to the AT&T name for wireless (at
that point in time.) The rights to use their name for wireless
returned to AT&T (LD) when Cingular bought ATTWS, and ironically,
AT&T (LD) had just signed a deal with Sprint to resell Sprint
wireless service under the AT&T name when they (AT&T LD) themselves
were purchased by SBC.


Another part was about to be spun off as AT&T Broadband but was
brought up by Comcast. The remaining part was bought be SBC
(one of the baby bells) and they renamed the company at&t again
for name recognition (but this is not the same company as the
previous Cingular).

Cingular was a joint venture of SBC and BellSouth, (two Baby
Bells.)

SBC bought the dying remnants of the old AT&T (LD) thus getting
rights to the AT&T name and renaming themselves (SBC) "at&t" in
lowercase this time) for the name recognition, as you said.

However, at this point, BellSouth still owned half of Cingular, and
likely wouldn't have relished changing Cingular's name to the OTHER
half-owner's name, so Cingular stayed Cingular for the moment.

Of course, this became a moot point when the "new" at&t (SBC) bought
BellSouth, which made Cingular 100% owned by "new AT&T" and cleared
the way to rename Cingular to at&t as well, so now at&t and "at&t
Mobility" (AT&T's internal name for their wireless divison) are now
part of the same company- an amalgam of Baby Bells SBC and BellSouth,
as well as what was left of the "old" AT&T- the long-distance company
(and "AT&T CallVantage" VoIP provider.)



--

"I don't need my cell phone to play video games or take pictures
or double as a Walkie-Talkie; I just need it to work. Thanks for
all the bells and whistles, but I could communicate better with
ACTUAL bells and whistles." -Bill Maher 9/25/2003

At 28 Sep 2007 14:50:33 -0500 Leslie Clark wrote:

"God" and "hate" cannot go in the same sentence, Rev. Phelps.


Heck, "God" and "Rev. Phelps" should never go in the same sentence!


--

"I don't need my cell phone to play video games or take pictures
or double as a Walkie-Talkie; I just need it to work. Thanks for
all the bells and whistles, but I could communicate better with
ACTUAL bells and whistles." -Bill Maher 9/25/2003

Todd Allcock wrote:
At 29 Sep 2007 22:40:24 +0000 Steve Jenkins wrote:

More recently AT&T Wireless was spun off from AT&T, which was
recently bought by Cingular (and they renamed the company at&t
because of better name recognition of the name at&t).

Yes and no- the old AT&T Wireless Services (ATTWS) spun off of AT&T
(the long-distance company) that Cingular bought was obligated
to stop using the AT&T name 18-months (maybe it was 24) after
divestiture. Only the Cingular acquisition stopped them from having
to rebrand themselves a few months later to who-knows-what.

Cingular did NOT acquire the rights to the AT&T name for wireless (at
that point in time.) The rights to use their name for wireless
returned to AT&T (LD) when Cingular bought ATTWS, and ironically,
AT&T (LD) had just signed a deal with Sprint to resell Sprint
wireless service under the AT&T name when they (AT&T LD) themselves
were purchased by SBC.


Another part was about to be spun off as AT&T Broadband but was
brought up by Comcast. The remaining part was bought be SBC
(one of the baby bells) and they renamed the company at&t again
for name recognition (but this is not the same company as the
previous Cingular).

Cingular was a joint venture of SBC and BellSouth, (two Baby
Bells.)

SBC bought the dying remnants of the old AT&T (LD) thus getting
rights to the AT&T name and renaming themselves (SBC) "at&t" in
lowercase this time) for the name recognition, as you said.

However, at this point, BellSouth still owned half of Cingular, and
likely wouldn't have relished changing Cingular's name to the OTHER
half-owner's name, so Cingular stayed Cingular for the moment.

Of course, this became a moot point when the "new" at&t (SBC) bought
BellSouth, which made Cingular 100% owned by "new AT&T" and cleared
the way to rename Cingular to at&t as well, so now at&t and "at&t
Mobility" (AT&T's internal name for their wireless divison) are now
part of the same company- an amalgam of Baby Bells SBC and BellSouth,
as well as what was left of the "old" AT&T- the long-distance company
(and "AT&T CallVantage" VoIP provider.)



I figured it was a little more involved (I had faintly heard about the
BellSouth purchase but did not know the details - I was more aware of
what was going on when I was an AT&T stockholder, but now I'm a little
out of the loop I guess - I had sold the stock shortly before the SBC
buyout).

Similar occurred with Verizon (Bell Atlantic merging with GTE - not sure
who bought who) and Verizon Wireless. Not sure if these are the same
company or an ownership thing. I was a GTE customer originally (now
Verizon) and an ALLTEL (sp?) customer for wireless. I know ALLTEL was
Bell Atlantic's cell phone division or majority owner (or whatever).
Shortly after the merger I had Verizon and Verizon Wireless. But it
seems there is still an ALLTEL company? So I'm confused. Anyway, I
thought Verizon Wireless was the same company as Verizon, but there
billing worked a little different - and upon talking to a Verizon CSR
one time about this difference, I was assured that they were different
companies.

At 30 Sep 2007 12:55:27 +0000 Steve Jenkins wrote:

Similar occurred with Verizon (Bell Atlantic merging with GTE
- not sure who bought who) and Verizon Wireless.

Usually it's easy to figure out- the company buying the other calls
it an "acquisition," while the one being bought calls it a "merger!"
;-)


Not sure if these are the same company or an ownership thing.

Verizon Wireless is 55% owned by Verizon (the landline telco) and 45%
owned by Vodaphone, a giant European telco.

was a GTE customer originally (now Verizon) and an ALLTEL (sp?)
customer for wireless. I know ALLTEL was Bell Atlantic's cell
phone division or majority owner (or whatever).

Actually, IIRC, BAM (Bell Atlantic Mobile) was BA's wireless division
that joined GTE and others to become Verizon Wireless.

Alltelis the largest regional wireless company left after all the
megers and acquisitions.

Shortly after the merger I had Verizon and Verizon Wireless.
But it seems there is still an ALLTEL company? So I'm confused.

Alltel is still around plugging away and uying up other small
regional wireless companies to expand their footprint.

Anyway, I thought Verizon Wireless was the same company as Verizon,
but there billing worked a little different - and upon talking to
a Verizon CSR one time about this difference, I was assured that
they were different companies.

Yep, just like Cingular used to be, until their two owners merged.



--

"I don't need my cell phone to play video games or take pictures
or double as a Walkie-Talkie; I just need it to work. Thanks for
all the bells and whistles, but I could communicate better with
ACTUAL bells and whistles." -Bill Maher 9/25/2003

In article ,
Todd Allcock wrote:
At 28 Sep 2007 14:50:33 -0500 Leslie Clark wrote:

"God" and "hate" cannot go in the same sentence, Rev. Phelps.

Heck, "God" and "Rev. Phelps" should never go in the same sentence!

Amen!

:-)


Patty

In article ,
Todd Allcock wrote:

SBC bought the dying remnants of the old AT&T (LD) thus getting
rights to the AT&T name and renaming themselves (SBC) "at&t" in
lowercase this time) for the name recognition, as you said.

And I hope they're done with all that for a while, because it's
been hard to keep track of which park the SF Giants are playing
in! In just seven years, it's gone from Pacific Bell Park to
SBC Park to AT&T Park. Only the first of which was reduceable
to a name that wasn't awkward to speak (PacBell Park).


"I don't need my cell phone to play video games or take pictures
or double as a Walkie-Talkie; I just need it to work. Thanks for
all the bells and whistles, but I could communicate better with
ACTUAL bells and whistles." -Bill Maher 9/25/2003

I agree. All those decades of refinement of landline phones and
their infrastructure so that calls went through reliably and
you could clearly hear the person you were talking to. Now we're
back to dropouts and poor audio! (Albeit now it's poor digital
audio rather than poor analog audio. I'd rather have the latter.)


Patty