T-Mobile selling off to AT&T

In article <[email protected]>, Cameo says...
>
> "The Ghost of General Lee" <[email protected]> wrote:
> >>That reminds me how stupid that name "Cingular" was. I'm not surprised
> >>that soon after that company bought AT&T, they renamed the combination
> >>to AT&T. BTW, anybody remembers what Cingular's name was before they
> >>adapted that stupid name?
> >
> > In my area, it was BellSouth Mobility.
>
> It was something else in the Seattle area, but I don't remember what.

SBC was formed by the merger of Ameritech (former AT&T properties in the
Midwest), Southwestern Bell, Pacific Bell/Nevada Bell and Southern New
England Telephone.

SBC and BellSOUTH later merged to form the new AT&T.

The corresponding wireless properties made the same switches.

But Seattle has always been Qwest/US West territory.

On the other hand, AT&T's cellular division has always been
headquartered there. I think AT&T Wireless was what Craig McCaw's
original wireless phone service ultimately became.

--
Steve Sobol - Programming/WebDev/IT Support
[email protected]

---

› See More: T-Mobile selling off to AT&T

Steve Sobol wrote on [Mon, 21 Mar 2011 20:42:01 -0700]:
> In article <[email protected]>, Cameo says...
>>
>> "The Ghost of General Lee" <[email protected]> wrote:
>> >>That reminds me how stupid that name "Cingular" was. I'm not surprised
>> >>that soon after that company bought AT&T, they renamed the combination
>> >>to AT&T. BTW, anybody remembers what Cingular's name was before they
>> >>adapted that stupid name?
>> >
>> > In my area, it was BellSouth Mobility.
>>
>> It was something else in the Seattle area, but I don't remember what.
>
> SBC was formed by the merger of Ameritech (former AT&T properties in the
> Midwest), Southwestern Bell, Pacific Bell/Nevada Bell and Southern New
> England Telephone.

Not really, SBC was Southwestern Bell Corp, and they and Ameritech merged.
Ameritech was already know for providing ****ty service and SBC was supposedly
worse, and after the merger they were.

They were known as SBC Ameritech for a while around here. They sold off
Ameritech WIreless to GTE

On Mon, 21 Mar 2011 20:50:25 -0600, Todd Allcock wrote:

> At 21 Mar 2011 12:28:20 -0500 Krazee Brenda wrote:
>
>> Google-Sprint may not become Google alone but they might as well be.
>> Google Voice will insure their domination of Sprint; Google Voice
>> replaces Sprint voicemail. Google is in the ISP biz @ 1gig.
>>
>> Google, AT&T, maybe no one else?
>
> I'm not sure how you equate Sprint hiring Google to handle Sprint's
> voicemail backend as a merger or domination of Sprint any more than Pepsi
> would "dominate" Sprint if Sprint served it in the employee cafeteria.
> Google is simply another vendor.

"Google is simply another vendor"?

<rolls eyes>
--
Hear Brenda's First Luv !
http://tr.im/2yad

"Steve Sobol" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> But Seattle has always been Qwest/US West territory.

True, but there's been also considerable GTE presence here.
In fact, up to recently I've been getting both Qwest and GTE Yellow
Pages.

> On the other hand, AT&T's cellular division has always been
> headquartered there. I think AT&T Wireless was what Craig McCaw's
> original wireless phone service ultimately became.

Yeap.

"Todd Allcock" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Interestingly, Cingular was formed as a joint venture of SBC and
> BellSouth long before the two merged. SBC bought the old AT&T and
> assumed the AT&T name shortly before merging with BellSouth, but
> Cingular
> kept the name Cingular at BellSouth's urging (BS didn't want the
> company
> they half-owned to have the other half's name.) When AT&T (SBC)
> absorbed
> BellSouth, Cingular adopted the AT&T name.

I don't know ... These mergers get confusing because AT&T was also cable
operator here that was later acquired by Comcast. I never understood how
the cable AT&T related to the cell phone company of the same name.

In article <[email protected]>,
"Cameo" <[email protected]> wrote:

> "NessNet" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> > In the Seattle MSC, when the 1900MHz PCS licenses were auctioned by
> > the FCC, it was originally won by GTE Wireless, who built and operated
> > a system for a while.
>
> Yes, I remember GTE wireless.
I only remember it as GTE Mobilnet.

>

--
"Even I realized that money was to politicians what the ecalyptus tree is to koala bears: food, water, shelter and something to crap on."
---PJ O'Rourke

On Tue, 22 Mar 2011 00:02:41 -0600, Todd Allcock wrote:

> At 22 Mar 2011 01:17:11 -0500 Krazee Brenda wrote:
>> On Mon, 21 Mar 2011 20:50:25 -0600, Todd Allcock wrote:
>>
>>> At 21 Mar 2011 12:28:20 -0500 Krazee Brenda wrote:
>>>
>>>> Google-Sprint may not become Google alone but they might as well be.
>>>> Google Voice will insure their domination of Sprint; Google Voice
>>>> replaces Sprint voicemail. Google is in the ISP biz @ 1gig.
>>>>
>>>> Google, AT&T, maybe no one else?
>>>
>>> I'm not sure how you equate Sprint hiring Google to handle Sprint's
>>> voicemail backend as a merger or domination of Sprint any more than
> Pepsi
>>> would "dominate" Sprint if Sprint served it in the employee
> cafeteria.
>>> Google is simply another vendor.
>>
>> "Google is simply another vendor"?
>>
>> <rolls eyes>
>
> Well, given that succinct yet thorough argument, I may have to reconsider
> my position...

Coming from the position that "Google is simply another vendor" to the
stark, cruel, cold world of reality is a long haul. Get back to me
late 2012.
--
Hear Brenda's First Luv !
http://tr.im/2yad

In article <[email protected]>, Richard B.
Gilbert <[email protected]> wrote:

> >>>> I just thought of a possible consequence of an AT&T (neé Cingular)
> >>>> acquisition of T-Mo that's too horrible to contemplate...
> >>>>
> >>>> ...John Navas might start posting his Cingular FAQs in alt.cellular.t-
> >>>> mobile as well! :-0
> >>>
> >>> he's going to shill for at&t now.
> >>
> >> You mean "again."
> >
> > i was referring to his going on and on about how wonderful t-mobile is
> > 'in the areas people care about' (weasel words), despite numerous
> > independent customer surveys showing that t-mobile coverage is very
> > weak compared to other carriers.
>
> Just because T-Mobile's coverage would not meet your needs, or mine,
> does NOT mean that it's useless to everyone. If it does what you need
> and charges less, go for it!!

i didn't say it was useless to everyone. my point was that navas is a
shill for t-mobile, and that it should be interesting to see him change
his tune if at&t/t-mobile is approved.

On 3/21/2011 7:59 PM, nospam wrote:
> In article<[email protected]>, Todd Allcock
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>>> I just thought of a possible consequence of an AT&T (neé Cingular)
>>>> acquisition of T-Mo that's too horrible to contemplate...
>>>>
>>>> ...John Navas might start posting his Cingular FAQs in alt.cellular.t-
>>>> mobile as well! :-0
>>>
>>> he's going to shill for at&t now.
>>
>> You mean "again."
>
> i was referring to his going on and on about how wonderful t-mobile is
> 'in the areas people care about' (weasel words), despite numerous
> independent customer surveys showing that t-mobile coverage is very
> weak compared to other carriers.

Just because T-Mobile's coverage would not meet your needs, or mine,
does NOT mean that it's useless to everyone. If it does what you need
and charges less, go for it!!

On 3/21/2011 10:55 PM, Todd Allcock wrote:

> Interestingly, Cingular was formed as a joint venture of SBC and
> BellSouth long before the two merged. SBC bought the old AT&T and
> assumed the AT&T name shortly before merging with BellSouth, but Cingular
> kept the name Cingular at BellSouth's urging (BS didn't want the company
> they half-owned to have the other half's name.) When AT&T (SBC) absorbed
> BellSouth, Cingular adopted the AT&T name.
>

It's all explained by Steven Colbert <http://www.glumbert.com/media/att>.

On 3/21/2011 4:59 PM, nospam wrote:

> i was referring to his going on and on about how wonderful t-mobile is
> 'in the areas people care about' (weasel words), despite numerous
> independent customer surveys showing that t-mobile coverage is very
> weak compared to other carriers.

What is rather ironic about what he did is that when you go into a
T-Mobile store they make a point about asking you where you need
coverage and check those places for you, and if they don't cover that
area they explain to you that they might not be the right choice for
you. That happened to me before T-Mobile covered my neighborhood. They
found no need to lie about coverage, but our favorite troll did not
share their view.

The merger would be a big help to customers of both companies in terms
of coverage and capacity, if not in terms of cost and customer service.
In urban areas T-Mobile's under-capacity towers would help relieve
network congestion for AT&T customers. In rural areas, AT&T's coverage
would provide coverage where T-Mobile customers currently have none.

AT&T is apparently very concerned that this deal won't pass anti-trust
scrutiny, judging from their statements trying to promote the deal as
being patriotic.3

On 3/21/2011 7:45 PM, Todd Allcock wrote:

> I know- I was just pointing out that until he switched from Cingular/AT&T
> to T-Mo, he waxed equally poetic about AT&T. And before he bought his
> Android phone, smartphones were too bulky and didn't do anything his
> RAZR, then Sony-Ericsson TM-506, couldn't do.
>
> Obviously the nation's best carrier/phone is whatever John is using at
> the moment!

He exhibited the same behavior with other, non-phone related, products
as well. We can be thankful that he seems to have finally realized that
it is not in his best interest to continue with that whole shtick as it
did not work out well.

On 3/21/2011 6:45 PM, Todd Allcock wrote:

> "Cingular" didn't have a name pre-Cingular, AFAIK.

Pretty sure you're right about that. My mom, a BellSouth customer,
simply had mobile service from BellSouth, there was no separate name for
the mobile phone business.

I thought the Cingular name was amusing because it was so close to the
asthma drug, Singulair, introduced in 1998, three years before Cingular
was formed.

Cingular got a bad reputation in the west because it was the old Pacific
Bell 1900 MHz GSM service, which was very poor in terms of coverage and
capacity.

Remember GAIT phones (AMPS, TDMA, GSM)? In Cingular's AMPS/TDMA regions
they were sold as a bridge product during the GSM transition. In the
western region Cingular never openly sold them. I contacted Cingular's
western regional headquarters to ask about GAIT phones, and received a
very nice e-mail that a) explained that GAIT phones would not solve
Cingular's network issues in California because even though they
supported TDMA, there was no roaming agreement with any TDMA carrier
(ATT Wireless), and b) the GAIT phone were only intended for use in
Cingular regions that were converting from TDMA/AMPS to GSM, and c) if
the phones did roam onto other TDMA/AMPS carriers there would be roaming
charges.

Cingular ended up paying large fines to California due to their service
issues. They fought it for a while, then decided to pay the fines, while
declaring that they had a strong case for appeal.

"SMS" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> It's all explained by Steven Colbert
> <http://www.glumbert.com/media/att>.

That's hilarious! Any wonder that I lost track of all those name
changes, too?

In article <[email protected]>, SMS says...


> The merger would be a big help to customers of both companies in terms
> of coverage and capacity, if not in terms of cost and customer service.

Coverage and capacity, quite possibly.

Cost and customer service, no. Nothing will change for current AT&T
customers, and T-Mo customers like myself will end up with higher prices
and the piss-poor customer service for which AT&T is infamous.



--
Steve Sobol - Programming/WebDev/IT Support
[email protected]