[Southack]

"How do you think this will effect AT&T's(T) stock Monday morning???"

I don't have a clue...but I can tell you that *I'm* not buying AT&T's stock Monday morning!

In the short term, AT&T will have tremendous merger costs. In the big picture, AT&T is losing long distance subscribers each year.

Over the long term, AT&T will be able to dramatically cut costs by eliminating large numbers of management jobs.

Will that be enough for AT&T to be competitive with cable, cellular, and internet long distance (and video phones)?

Man, I don't have that answer for you.

[freeangel]

"by eliminating large numbers of management jobs"

That will be interesting. 1500 managers at Bellsouth will be eliminated as of April.

[SierraWasp]

Well, out here, the SBC dudes working the lines, so to speak, say that SBC is in the AT&T "drivers seat," and that the AT&T name survives as just the name of the company driven by SBC. They are just as adamant about that as my trademark three exclamation mark punctuation excess!!!

Of course we like it better when it was call "Pacific Bell" before SBC bought that entity and ruined the name of the San Franpsycho Giants baseball stadium by changing it from "Pac Bell Park" to "SBC Stadium!" At least now we'll get back to the AT&T at Pebble Beach and "AT&T Park" in SFO!!!

I just found this article on which Mutual Funds Hold the most Bell South and AT&T shares

I'm sure those who already hold shares of either, or both today will fare far better than anyone just putting their order in before the bell on Monday!!! (but still...)