I know, I am not. But 15 years ago there was at&t home service here so I'm sure some old people who have no idea what is going on in life are going to try and have me help them.

Yeah or you will get a bunch of people wanting the service. That will be a waste of your time!

As more and more regions go to fiber lines you WILL become an ATT service area. They've been running fiber to the curb in my area for the past year. This is going to be crucial for some of the integrated services ATT will be offering soon.

Internet, cable, cell phone, home phone, all integrated and one. Not just all on one bill either. You wanna watch tv on your phone or laptop? Sure, go ahead. Create a music playlist on your home computer and stream it to your phone where ever you're at. Who needs an mp3 phone or expanded storage? Not ATT customers.

This sh*ts gonna rock.

Just one problem they are going to be in bandwidth crunch. They are not going fiber to home as verizon is and the method they picked is not as good. It is very tight when you have internet phone and video on that line. It is going to be for one compressed like crazy! And 2 even that might not be enough!

At&t Wireless will be the name

wombough said:
Just one problem they are going to be in bandwidth crunch. They are not going fiber to home as verizon is and the method they picked is not as good. It is very tight when you have internet phone and video on that line. It is going to be for one compressed like crazy! And 2 even that might not be enough!

but realistically most customers will be happy with that service and will be all they would ask for. you can get HD/internet/phone on 25mhz.

AT&T has already made several moves toward a multi-tiered internet, and I don't think anyone here can argue that Cingular isn't a rather greedy company. AT&T will only further the policies that enforce profit control. Yes, they're my employer, but I REALLY don't want them to have a monopoly on internet, phone, & mobile services - they'd be able to charge whatever they wanted, and control much more than they currently do.

You want to watch tv on your phone or laptop? Sure go ahead. . . it'll cost you for each, and you'll be restricted in what you can watch, not to mention you'd probably be unable to record most of your favorite shows, unless you're using an AT&T approved DVR.

I'm not looking forward to so small a range of choices in...
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If ATT is your employer how can you not know about uverse?

Also there's still competition since Verizon is doing the exact same thing with their phios services.

its spelled FIOS not phios

well there ya go... confirmation that they're doing the same thing.

its not they are running Fiber straight to your home not to your pole then copper into your home!

dude. part of at&t wanting to get where they are now is becuase there is TOO much competition now. prices will stay competitive and services will get rolled out faster. plus, one billing system for all of cingular and eventually one billing system for the entire company.

people are so afraid of monopolies, but in this day in age where there are 50 start ups for every one established 'big' company and competition is thriving and hurting more than helping, it's nice to know one company is able to provide anything you need.

Big brother is nice.

Right now, AT&T is getting to the point where it's becoming a dominant monopoly again. There are already telco monopolies all over the country. Where I live, I have ONE choice for internet service: Comcast Cable. For millions of other people, their only choice is Qwest DSL, or AT&T DSL, or whoever. Yes, you may have a choice of service levels within that company, but there are large areas of the country where there is effectively a monopoly on telco services.

I'll admit that there are potentially advantages to having a nation wide company - cost & features can potentially stay low that way, but I think it's far better to be able to have some measure of choice as to which carrier you can have. Which, btw, is a great thing about the c...
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japhy said:
Right now, AT&T is getting to the point where it's becoming a dominant monopoly again. There are already telco monopolies all over the country. Where I live, I have ONE choice for internet service: Comcast Cable. For millions of other people, their only choice is Qwest DSL, or AT&T DSL, or whoever. Yes, you may have a choice of service levels within that company, but there are large areas of the country where there is effectively a monopoly on telco services.

I'll admit that there are potentially advantages to having a nation wide company - cost & features can potentially stay low that way, but I think it's far better to be able to have some measure of choice as to which carrier you can have. Which, b

...
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Actually if your talking about Highspeed internet access, then yes.. especially if VZW - the other monolopy can't offer FIOS or DSL... in some places (like where I live),Comcast is the only provider at a cost thats not insane (ie Sat.) so while technically I can get Netzero.. I effectively am cut off from anything other than text emails and Comcast has an effective monopoly in the area

And ATT/VZW et al are and can be monopolies not "made" by the consumer they OWN the infrastructure.. with your ridiculous MSFT example.. if MSFT owned every PC it would be a different story..alas they do not.. so while they are in fact guilty of anticompetitive practices they are not in the same realm as the Bells..

Actually, Crackberry was right - I didn't count dialup. And it's certainly true that consumer restrictions partially dictate what companies will succeed (Apple/iPod is a great example - people want a mp3 player that works good). Of course, companies play into this, and MS is a great example: Yes, consumers are partially at fault for the continuation of the monopoly, but MS started it by creating the market of PCs bundled with Windows by the deals it made with PC manufacturers.

But your analogy is pretty good.

Hmmm that reminds me of a lot of the promises AWS made about mLife :-/
It would be cool if they can actually do all that will though :-)