Act 1: Cingular Wireless, AT&T Wireless and Verizon Wireless jockey for position in the race to be the biggest wireless company in the US.
Act 2: AT&T Wireless goes on the market. A bidding war ensues. Vodafone bids $38 billion. Cingular wins with an astonishing bid of $41 billion. Cingular is now the largest Wireless carrier in the US.
Act 3: Cingular begins the epic task of streamlining the two companies’ networks and billing systems.
Finale: Cingular decides that the AT&T brand is better than the brand of the SBC child, Cingular.
Confused? You should be. It’s silly.
What feat of executive level mental gymnastics did these CEOs go through to decide to dump the Cingular brand?
Are they losing money? Is AT&T more familiar, recognizable, or trustworthy?
Even before the merger, AT&T wireless was actually a completely separate company from AT&T. A few years ago some AT&T big-wig decided that the company would be more profitable if they split into four separate companies: AT&T Long Distance, AT&T Wireless, AT&T Broadband and AT&T Fixed Wireless. The only affiliation AT&T wireless had with AT&T after the split was a licensed brand.
At any rate, Cingular/AT&T customers aren’t going to be happy. They’ve already had to do a fair degree of adjusting in the wake of the collision merger of the two wireless monoliths. Now they have to go through it again. Hopefully this change will be smoother than the bumpy merger was last year.
Who knows? Maybe it will be a good move. After all, having been around since 1878, the AT&T brand is certainly one of the most trusted and recognized brands in the US.
*UPDATE* (Or another wrench in the spokes.)
It appears for now that Cingular will stay Cingluar, but it’s parent company SBC will adopt the AT&T brand. Did that clear up any confusion? (I didn’t think so.)
cnet news has more about this silliness.
Comments (2)
…well, it’s even more confusing than I originally thought. Engadget is reporting that AT&T might actually re-launch AT&T wireless… which will eventually get swallowed up by SBC, the parent company of Cingular. However, most of the news that I’ve seen about this so far, is that Cingular is going to rebrand as AT&T Wireless. More news at 11.
Alright, Phone Scoop is reporting that Cingular will keep it’s brand.
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