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Cingular becomes ATT Monday

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Originally posted by: Vic
Cingular/ATT is one of those single-company-many-entities cannibalisms that is common in American corporatism. A parent company builds, sells, buys back, ad infinitum a daughter company as a means of making money and transferring assets (it also represents internal power plays within the corporation itself). Kind of like GE/NBC/RCA or CBS/Viacom/Westinghouse to name just a couple. The entity known today as Cingular was formed by ATT in late '70s as Advanced Mobile Phone Service, was divested as prt of the monopoly break-up, and has been through numerous iterations since then.
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In the case of multi-service Telcos, having various divisions is usually also required by Federal and State regulation.

In AT&Ts case (probably Verizon & others too), the Dialtone organization is regulated differently than the ISP organization, which is regulated differently than the L2 services (Frame & ATM), which is different than the Cellular, and DSL/Dial-up and consulting and CPE ... all regulated differently (they are all "affiliates" and there are also rules about how one affiliate can deal with the other affiliates)

FWIW
 
Originally posted by: JEDI
"AT&T/RBOCs don't have a monopoly anymore, because other companies can lease their lines and sell their services on them. "

dumb question:

Why would any company want to lease out their lines at a cheaper price and have it used against them?!
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That is "The Law," the rules, the way it must be, according to the Feds & State.

The RBOCs and other Telcos that "own" the region are called "Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers" (ILECs). The ILEC owns the infrastructure (Central Offices, cabling, and equipment).

The rules after the breakup and re-merger say that the ILEC must wholesale their facilities and infrastructure to the "Competitive Local Exchange Carriers" (CLECs) at a rate that will permit them to mark it up at a competitive (read: lower) rate than the ILEC ... now, whether the CLEC actually sells for less is their decision. Many sell at the same rate or add additonal services and sell for more.

As an example; DSL. In the AT&T footprint, you can get AT&T DSL, or you can get DSL from one of the CLECs ... like EarthLink, AOL, SPeakeasy (and a bunch of others).

AT&T *MUST* provide space in the Central Offices for the CLEC's switching equipment, and space for the CLEC's personnel to maintain that equipment.

AT&T as the ILEC *MUST* also permit them (the CLECs) access to their infrastructure to distribute their services to the consumer. AT&T *MUST* also provide service to the infrastructure that the CLEC is using, and it must provide that service at a level that is *at least* as good as they would for their own customers.

So, if you lived in AT&T's footprint, and you got service from EarthLink, and you were having "problems" ... you call EarthLink ... because that's you gets your money.

They check their stuff (switches, routers, interconnects, platforms, whatever) ... if they think the problem is with "the wire," they call AT&T and open a service request, and coordinate the repair effort.

AT&T does the fix, and if billing is in order, they bill Earthlink. If the problem is with the inside wiring, AT&T bills you, I believe.

So, if you live in the AT&T footprint, it doesn't matter whose services you pay for, the signal is (usually) carried on AT&T infrastructure.

Anyway, the short answer to your questions is: They must, by Federal and state regulation, share their infrastructure to registered CLECs.

FWIW

Scott
 
fccc att. now that they have the user base and coverage, they wont have to provide ANY customer service to ANYbody because they dont have to
 
Grrr....I had Cingular. Left them cause I hate their service. Went to AT&T. No sooner did I change over to AT&T did Cingular take them over. My service was horrible so I finally conceded to go back to Cingular. And now AT&T is coming back. WTF! I hate Cingular.
 
Originally posted by: mugs
Originally posted by: JEDI
Originally posted by: mugs
Originally posted by: JEDI
Originally posted by: mugs
Originally posted by: jdini76
Originally posted by: mugs
Originally posted by: jdini76
Does it have to do with the fact that verizon can put their wireless and telephone customers on one bill?
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Huh? It has to do with the fact that with AT&T's acquisition of BellSouth they own all of Cingular.
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Didn't Cingular buy out AT&T wirelss a couple years ago? I am fuzzy on the details.
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Yeah.

Cingular was a joint venture between SBC and BellSouth.
AT&T had their own wireless company, AT&T Wireless, and they sold it to Cingular.
SBC bought AT&T and adopted the AT&T name (or at&t)
SBC (not AT&T) bought BellSouth, meaning they own Cingular entirely now.
Since SBC + BellSouth (+ PacBell + SNET + Ameritech) is now AT&T, they're changing the name of Cingular (+ AT&T Wireless) to the name of the company they bought a few years ago. 😉

Diagram to make it easier 😛
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wtfbbq?

what happened to the anti-monopoly lawsuit that broke AT&T up into little peices?!

it looks like the little pieces are coming back together again like the bad guy in Terminator2.

So which phone companies havent re-merged yet?
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Deregulation happened. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competitive_local_exchange_carrier
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thx for the link, but i couldnt make any sesne of it 🙁
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AT&T/RBOCs don't have a monopoly anymore, because other companies can lease their lines and sell their services on them.
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lol this is so wrong
 
Originally posted by: heathertre
Grrr....I had Cingular. Left them cause I hate their service. Went to AT&T. No sooner did I change over to AT&T did Cingular take them over. My service was horrible so I finally conceded to go back to Cingular. And now AT&T is coming back. WTF! I hate Cingular.
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clearly, they're out to get you. resistance if futile.
 
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