Future Plans with AT&T's Name
I agree with many when I say that it will happen. But not now. SBC undoubted has its eye on BellSouth. Just look at all the post-1984 AT&T entities its gobbled up. Basically, SBC long distance, home phone, cable, and internet will all be renamed at&t. It shows unity and uses a name everyone knows.
What this means for cingular (or SBC) is that they can unify the image of all services and bring home customers to the cell phones, or more importantly for SBC, cell phone users to internet or home phone.
The only snag is getting BellSouth to go along. And since they are hitting the hard times, they would go along with it if it brought in more customers.
I beleive SBC wants to expand its ownership of cingular from 60% to at least 2/3 or 3/4, eventually completely. This will be much easier with a unified name and higher profits.
Thats my spin on it. It will happen, there is no doubt. However, this will not be soon. Probably not for at least 2 years.
Call me crazy, but this is my belief.
Check back on this message in 2 years.
It looks like att (sbc) is going to gain approval for the bellsouth deal, with plans to rename bellsouth and cingular as att.
They were saying something about ATT going to use a rebrand of Sprint for their wireless division...that would cause a lot of confusiuon..right???
Now SBC (at&t inc.) is simply rebranding Cingular as at&t as well.