Re: Welcome back, Ma Bell

["Eric A. Hall" <ehall () ehsco com>]

Nice rant. But since this isn't your blog you'll probably have to grace us
with some substance.

None of AT&T exists anymore--SBC acquired that corpse last year, so the
company currently calling itself "AT&T" isn't even really "AT&T". The new
deal is basically SBC buying up BellSouth and getting the rest of Cingular
in the deal. I just don't see how this is all that different from the
stream of M&As that produced Verizon back in the 90s.

Sure it's a big deal, just like that one was. Another giant telco, hoorah.
Nightsweats about the ghost of Ma Bell rising? lol no.


On 3/5/2006 10:24 PM, Fergie wrote:
> An overreach? Really?
>
> I'd say that you're not paying attention.
>
> And how do you come to that conclusion? By the fact that "very
> little" of the original AT&T is in the current monolith?
>
> Well, given the entire 'two-tiered' money-grab-tastic issues
> involved, I'd say you're a little out of touch.
>
> - ferg
>
>
> -- "Eric A. Hall" <ehall () ehsco com> wrote:
>
>
>
> On 3/5/2006 7:10 PM, Steve Sobol wrote:
>
> > Eric A. Hall wrote:
> >
> >
> > > What are people worried about here exactly?
> >
> > The same lack of competition in telecommunications that we had in the 1980s?
>
>
> Well that's an overreach. And if the primary concern is consolidation then
> we should have blocked NYNEX and Bell Atlantic from merging back in 1997,
> since this deal is basically SBC + BellSouth/Cingular, which is mostly
> indistinguishable from the earlier one.
>
> I think people are reacting to the brand, the AT&T ghost really, since
> there's none of it left.

-- 
Eric A. Hall                                        http://www.ehsco.com/
Internet Core Protocols          http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/coreprot/