AT&T Nears $65 Billion Deal To Buy BellSouth

The Wall Street Journal (Excerpt) (Subscription required) ^ | March 5, 2006 | DIONNE SEARCEY, AMY SCHATZ, ALMAR LATOUR and DENNIS BERMAN

[HAL9000]

Excerpt -

AT&T Inc. is nearing the acquisition of BellSouth Corp. for roughly $65 billion, people familiar with the situation said Saturday evening. A deal could be announced as early as Monday, these people said.

~snip~

[Keith in Iowa]

And how much did the gov't spend way back when to break up ol' MaBell cuz she was too much of a monopoly??

[RichInOC]

AT&T: We're Getting The Band Back Together.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

Great. I'm already urinated off because SBC just merged with ATT, and I have SBC Yahoo! for my DSL. Now this crap. ATT is a dinosaur, they're the GM of telecommunications.

[soccer_maniac]

That's interesting.

Huge merger - massive layoffs coming

[ARA]

It's ATT in name only... Southwestern Bell is the engine...

[eyespysomething]

Wonderful.

We just got the mess of all of our Bellsouth statewide eleventy-hundred DSL lines at work straightened out in regards to billing and cutting off dial-ups and authorized persons on the accounts and ship to and bill to addresses and on-and-on, and now they're going to sell.

The mess just straightened out was from the 4 previous companies (before I was there) which handled our telecomm - WorldCom, Bell South, Alltel and AT&T, depending on who was the carrier in the location.

Wonderful. I look forward to dealing with a whole 'nuther company and getting everything completely screwed up again, and unraveling it for a few years.

[HAL9000]

I feel sorry for BellSouth customers. Ed Whitacre shouldn't be running a phone company. He belongs in prison.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

Southwestern Bell is the engine...

What is SBC? The leather interior?

[Lunatic Fringe]

In the beginning, there was Ma Bell. And the government said, "This is not good." So the Bell was broken.

Then, came monopolistic competition. And the government said, "This is not good." So the industry was deregulated.

Then came the deregulated free-for-all. And the government said "It is good."

But without regulation, the companies had Free Will to do as they please rejected competition, saying "Let's merge."

It's the circle of life.

[ASOC]

As a telecom guy that got laid off, I have to say the numbers are staggering, millions over the 4 years and the consolidation is not over.
Prices for consumers have come down, but the pressure on margins are now so incredible as to boggle the mind. Say what you will, any company has to make a profit, and consolidation is one way to increase profits.

[Publius6961]

"And how much did the gov't spend way back when to break up ol' MaBell cuz she was too much of a monopoly??

Well, we've come full circle.
By pure coincidence, I just got done watching I, Robot perhaps an intended metaphor for centralization and unintended consequences.

The waste associated with the excercise must be mind blowing.
I think there is a message here, but although all can hear it few can understand it. Most people today are not aware of the original AT&T and this is all a new and insignificant development.

The waste associated is mind-boggling.

[soccer_maniac]

I used to have a home land line and paid on average $50/month.

Now I have cellphone and pay $100/month.

As far as I can tell, telcos are better off now.

[cva66snipe]

When the split happened my dad had a choice between staying with Bellsouth {Southern Bell when he hired on then South Central Bell}. He stayed with Bellsouth and faired much better than the ones who went with AT&T. Many AT&T people got the ax within the first few years of the split. He went back outside because he worked in the 4A office and right at the split they put in the ESS and had cut it over two weeks before he went back outside. He did 45 years with Bell most of it in 4-A. Man that was a loud equipment room and the CAMA machines even louder.

Judge Greene really didn't do anyone any favors. Service went down hill fast. From what I'm seeing now even a cable splicer is rare. That makes me wonder how long it will be before the grid from C.O. to SLICK, businesses, and homes really start to show some major troubles. It sounds like someone is betting the farm on satellite technology to replace the lines {complete wireless} but that's still a ways off.

[soccer_maniac]

[Pro-Bush]

Is this the SBC/AT&T?

[ARCADIA]

The waste associated is mind-boggling.

Just wait until the next administration decides to nationalize the company; then we will know what real waste is.

[Sprite518]

Cingular was a split between AT&T(formally SBC) and BellSouth. BellSouth is an easy take over target.

[cva66snipe]

The waste associated with the excercise must be mind blowing. I think there is a message here, but although all can hear it few can understand it. Most people today are not aware of the original AT&T and this is all a new and insignificant development. The waste associated is mind-boggling.

I rememberwhenMa Bell included Bell, Western Electric and AT&T working all in the same company. All was well. If you phone went out you went to a neighbor, called the LOCAL repair service who dispatched that day in a matter of hours and not a week from next Tuesday. The repair was done and no bill for it as it was figured in.

Bell ran the most efficient ran as a utility which is what it actually was.

They could keep a big enough crew to handle anything that came up. When the work was caught up then preventative maintenance was done. You didn't have to call several companies to get accounting issues settled either.

Old Ma Bell did have some problems but not near as many as the split created.

[Dont Mention the War]

Cingular was a split between AT&T(formally SBC) and BellSouth. BellSouth is an easy take over target.

Good. They can dump the stupid Cingular name and bring back AT&T Wireless. Yeah, the signal sucks, but at least the AT&T rate plans were decent. I still won't let them flip me over from "Blue" to "Orange" because "Orange" still can't figure out how to offer me a plan that doesn't charge for incoming text messages.