The new ATT.?

Question

Not too long ago I had a contract with ATT wireless. Then, they were acquired by Cingular. They kept on calling telling me that my plan was no longer valid, that I needed to choose a new plan and a new phone if possible. I did. Now Cingular gets acquired by ATT! WTF? Are they gonna do the same thing to us this time?! Why do they do sell just to buy back?!

Answer 1

Congratulations and welcome to the world of Big Business.

The transition from Cingular back to AT&T will be less painful that that first transition. Cingular's acquision of AT&T Wireless some years ago not only included getting the subscription base of AT&T, but also migrating those TDMA users (you included) to GSM. Migrating you into new Cingular packages also made sense for standardization.

The sale of AT&T Wireless to Cingular was AT&T's need to focus on their core compentency, which is business communications and network solutions. Not residential long distance, which has a big subscription base but makes very little money. Not Cable TV, which they tried unsuccessfully to convert into a complementary communication network prior to VoIP. And not wireless, which, while making AT&T a pile of money, was criticized by Wall Street as detracting from their "core competency."

This time, though, the switch from Cingular to AT&T (the result of AT&T/SBC acquiring BellSouth and the remaining share of the Cingular partnership) will be more of a marketing thing. I don't think they'll make you change packages and, since you're all on the same technology (GSM), there should be no request to change phones unless you want to get the cool new ones.