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Follow The Bouncing AT&T Wireless Name
from the round-and-round-the-globe dept
Okay, you deserve to be forgiven if you're confused by the saga of AT&T Wireless -- because it's been anything but clear. Here's the quick summary though: A little more than a decade ago, AT&T bought McCaw Cellular, which they renamed AT&T Wireless. In 2000, they reorganized the company, making AT&T Wireless a separate division. In 2001, they spun that company off -- so that it was an entirely separate company from AT&T (which resulted in plenty of confusion). There was a licensing deal for the name and, a couple years later, when AT&T freaked out at its own lack of a wireless offering (ooops!) a partnership was built between the two companies to bundle AT&T Wireless plans with AT&T service -- even though they were really separate companies. Then, along came Cingular to buy AT&T Wireless in 2004. AT&T gets back the AT&T name (earlier this year), and all the old AT&T Wireless customers are now Cingular customers. AT&T again freaks out at its lack of a wireless offering, and signs a deal with Sprint to offer AT&T Wireless branded service on Sprint in an MVNO format that will have absolutely nothing to do with the old AT&T Wireless (in fact, it will use a totally different network technology). Of course, before this has a chance to go anywhere, along comes Cingular's 60% owner, SBC, to buy AT&T and (of course) take on the AT&T name -- which, as of April of this year, includes the right to use that name for a wireless offering. So, now, it's not at all surprising to hear that the new AT&T (which just last week was known as SBC) would like for Cingular to start offering service under the AT&T brand name again, thereby bringing back AT&T Wireless service to folks who have just gotten over the fact that they're no longer AT&T Wireless customers. Simple, huh? How could anyone possibly be confused?
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It's about time!
I'm glad to see the name back in force - with all this consolidation in telecom, we are finally going to see things calm down and real competition take place between cable and telcos...
Whose waiting for the "New AT&T" to make a run at SBC? [Anyone feel the Bell System?]
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Still AT&T
I originally called because my wife needed a new phone, and upgrading mine wouldn't hurt either. So I figured that if we recontracted with Cingular, we would be eligible for rebates on new phones. Cingular told me this cannot be the case, because though the two companies have merged, Cingular still has to 'honor' my AT&T contract.
I found that even though both my bill and my phone show I am using Cingular service, they still refer to former AT&T customers as Cingular Blue customers.
So, AT&T still apparently exists, regardless of if their name is not in use.
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Re: Still AT&T
Will my old AT&T wireless accounts, now be rebranded from Cingular "blue" back to AT&T, and will all my Cingular accounts now be branded AT&T "Orange"?
And don't EVEN get me going on the service (or lack of it).
I'm switching to Verizon Wireless!
Hear that AT&Tingular?!
Call me when your schizophrenic identity crisis is over and you want to offer real services to customers.
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Keep rearranging the deck chairs...
They can call the company "Monkeys Flying Out of My Butt" for all I care. While they were busying in meetings over corporate branding, their customers were leaving for better products at better prices...
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Re: Keep rearranging the deck chairs...
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AT&T & SBC
I especially resented being told by the customer service people that I needed to "come back" to AT&T? Um, what? I never left guys. You left me -- and kept it a secret.
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cingular customer
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