I advertise in the SBC local phone book (N. Dallas). Recently I received a call from my new representative who just moved to Texas from Connecticut(I assume for this job). I do not know what happened to my Texas guy.
After too much rude behavior and BS I told her that I was moving my dollar to a few different locally owned books because AT&T had a bad reputation and people used SBC because it was local. She smugly informed me that they had done much research and assured me that focus groups had confirmed AT&T was the name to use.
i had to laugh because i live in Plano Texas, I know my neighbors and my customers and I know SBC had a good rep and people used their books. Now that it will say AT&T people won't. I know this because I won't use them either.
My guess is that they will change to SBC after a few years.
If you live in Texas there is no more local phone company than AT&T. It's simply a name change. The staffs of both companies are being merged, and of course there have been some job cuts, but as an employee of the new AT&T, there really have not been any drastic changes.