Cingular agrees to buy AT&T Wireless (Ma Bell coming back alert)

MSNBC ^ | February 17, 2004 | Associated Press

[El Conservador]

ATLANTA - Cingular Wireless won the bidding war to acquire AT&T Wireless Services for nearly $41 billion in cash, a deal that would create the nation’s largest cell phone company.

The merger between the second and third largest U.S. wireless companies was announced Tuesday as Britain’s Vodafone Group PLC withdrew from the contest after four days of rising bids.

[El Conservador]

Ma Bell is coming back...

[Bikers4Bush]

Naaah, when the orginal baby bells started buying each other up everyone worried too. Nothing has really come of it.

I do however find it interesting that two baby bell offshoots were competing for AT&T wireless though.

[eno_]

This is the right thing.

Separately they could never build out a GSM network in the U.S. Hopefully now their GSM coverage will not be a joke and Verizon will not be the only usable network.

I use Verizon because it works. I wish I could use a GSM network so I could use my phone in Europe, too.

[discostu]

Let's hope so. The babybells suck, a large phone network works better than a bunch of medium networks. And maybe we can end the long distance wars and get rid of a bunch of really annoying commercials.

[kevkrom]

Terrific... the two least reliable cell phone companies in America merge. With their track records, can we really expect the end result to be better?

[mondonico]

"Ma Bell is coming back..."

Not really. The key to the breakup of Ma Bell was the forced separation of the long distance lines (which AT&T kept) from the local lines (which the Baby Bells got). That's why consolidation of the Baby Bells also doesn't add up to a resurrection of the bad old AT&T.

Now, if a Baby Bell tried to buy AT&T's long distance unit, then you'd have a resurrection.

Sorry to be pedantic.

[RWR8189]

I just happened to find this two year old thread interesting as SBC did in fact buy AT&T, and now the retooled AT&T is preparing to buy BellSouth and in doing so take complete control of Cingular, and rename it AT&T Wireless.

Funny how things work out...

[mondonico]

Yes it is. This IS the resurrection. Weirdly, although SBC bought AT&T, Verizon is the one moving into AT&T's corporate headquarters in Basking Ridge NJ.