http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6887107/

Ok, let's get the logic straight here:

SBC is basically the offspring of the breakup of AT&T in 1984
SBC owns a majority stake in Cingular
Cingular bought AT&T wireless last year
SBC now buys AT&T

So basically SBC paid extra for AT&T wireless when it could just have bought AT&T and gotten the wireless division (before AT&T spun it off to shareholders, then sold itself to Cingular).

Isn't that a waste of investor's money?

 

Well, I think the whole break-up of Ma-Bell is a scam and a waste of investor's money. Basically we had a big company called AT&T that looks after setting standards for the tele-communication industry, it was doing such a good job that the Government decided we need some chaos in the industry and broke it up into little pieces. Well, since then, we are paying higher long-distance bills and the service is much worse than before.

And now we are seeing the re-consolication of the communications companies back into one big company. I hope this new big company (which may even be called AT&T again) will do as good a job in setting standards for tele-communications and keeping the prices low and quality of service up, like the original AT&T used to do before the Government got its hands on it.

 

Hmm... Why would you think that the cost of purchasing AT&T is the same as purchasing AT&T and AT&T Wireless together?

Isn't it possible that purchasing them seperately is less than doing it together?

 

Um, yeah. I'm going to go ahead and disagree with this.

Long distance rates under AT&T were *much* higher than rates today because competition and technical advances. If you have no competition, then where is the incentive to do R&D and better yourself.

Plus, service is much better today than before, especially when you go to a CLEC as opposed to an RBOC, but even then I think the service is better due to advances in technology. AT&T never had call waiting, caller id, call block, etc...

Generally I'm opposed to the govt getting involved in business, but you're just plain wrong on this one.

 

When AT&T was still intact, we had Bell Labs that did a lot of the research, anything from basic research to tele-communications (the transistor was invented by Bell Labs, the Unix operating system, the modem, and so on). Can you point to any of the Bell children and say they are doing the equivalent research as what Bell Labs did? Without the backing of AT&T, Bell Labs (which got spun off as part of Lucent Technologies) is struggling to survive.

The technologies you cited: call waiting, caller id, call block, etc., were all invented by AT&T back when it was still together, they just never had a chance to put it into the market place yet. Yes, I'd agree the smaller companies accelerated the deployment of some of the technologies. But advances in technology will happen even if AT&T was not broken up. Now the CLEC / RBOC companies are too busy trying to make a buck to compete with the other companies that they don't have any time to do any research.

Now that you have brought it up, I wonder who is going to drive the next wave of research for the US? IBM is still doing it, but Xerox is struggling and thinking of spinning off PARC. HP has their HP-Labs, but much smaller scale than Bell Labs. Microsoft is a joke when it comes to basic research. Most of the university research in the US was done by foreign students; but after 9/11, the foreign student population has declined significantly. So the break-up of Ma Bell signalled the decline of the US leadership in innovation.

 

^do you have any proof backing up your claims to saying most of university research is done by foreign student????


i believe that is full of balony.. i dare u to walk to uc campuses and the massachussetts campuses and say that..

 

yeah, have you heard of william hung?

Actually the answer to Rich's original question was that AT&T wireless and AT&T were different companies. AT&T wireless did not fit under the main company's umbrella.

Regardless, i got a cingular phone recently and have to say that verizon still has better reception.

 

Well, when I was attending UC, most of the research work was done by foreign students. Of course, eventually most of the foreign students decided to remain in the US and find jobs here.

Here is a link to a MSNBC article:
Decline in foreign grad students raises alarm
I can find you other sources if you are not satisfied, but most sources agreed that foreign students do a significant portion of the research in the US.

 

good call! i guess the guy rarely walks on campuses of Caltech, MIT, Harvard, Berkley, UCLA, UW, etc.

 

um, yeah, if one had any idea what was going on in the universities of America, one would agree that foreign students are a boon to the American economy, and their own, as well. My cousin was one tf the rare American citizens to actually get a Masters degree in his field of engineering. We used to train the best in the world. Now they have gone and got jobs in other countries, doing their best to share the wealth. We still train the best in the world, but fewer of them, as the people we train go out and teach, and world politics has made education a potentially sticky subject