Say Hello To The New Ma Bell

from the she-looks-mighty-different dept

No surprise here, but SBC is now AT&T as the deal has officially closed — just a bit ahead of schedule. Almost all of the AT&T DNA has been jettisoned, and so we’ve basically got SBC with a more recognizable brand name and a lot more customers. Now for the countdown on how long it will take before they try to buy BellSouth. The two companies are already joined at the hip in many ways. The assumption is it would be a tough slog through the FTC to get approval for such a deal, but enough whispering is going on that at some point they’re expected to try. The two companies have held merger talks in the past, with apparently BellSouth resisting overtures more than once — but the pressure may get much stronger pretty soon. A recent prediction was that SBC would announce an acquisition of BellSouth within 24 hours of the deal closing with AT&T. The clock is now ticking… but I wouldn’t hold my breath for this one just yet.


Rate this comment as insightful
Rate this comment as funny
You have rated this comment as insightful
You have rated this comment as funny
Flag this comment as abusive/trolling/spam
You have flagged this comment
The first word has already been claimed
The last word has already been claimed
Insightful Lightbulb icon Funny Laughing icon Abusive/trolling/spam Flag icon Insightful badge Lightbulb icon Funny badge Laughing icon Comments icon

Comments on “Say Hello To The New Ma Bell”

Subscribe: RSS Leave a comment
7 Comments
Ray says:

Re: Re: AT&T

John – hey dipshit, Armstrong raided AT&T’s huge cash surplus by paying top dollar for small cable companies throughout the nation (to create AT&T Broadband), then he turned around and sold AT&T Broadband to Comcast for a firesale cheap price. In return, he was rewarded by Comcast with a do-nothing executive “job” at Comcast – his reward for fucking over AT&T.

George Smith says:

ATT(SBC) & BellSouth

Both companies have desided to eliminnate there online yellow pages and merge them into yellowpages.com. not only that but they both have bragging rights to Cingular… I’ve been waiting for this and I don’t think I have to wait much longer for BellSouth to get gobbled up… All I care about is where are they going to drop there next fiber lines.

Add Your Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now. Want one? Register here

Comment Options:

Make this the or (get credits or sign in to see balance) what's this?

What's this?

Techdirt community members with Techdirt Credits can spotlight a comment as either the "First Word" or "Last Word" on a particular comment thread. Credits can be purchased at the Techdirt Insider Shop »

Follow Techdirt

Techdirt Daily Newsletter

Ctrl-Alt-Speech

A weekly news podcast from
Mike Masnick & Ben Whitelaw

Subscribe now to Ctrl-Alt-Speech »
Techdirt Deals
Techdirt Insider Discord
The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...
Loading...