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 January 1 1984, The US Government put an end to a corporate monopoly and broke At&t up. Harold Greene ruled that AT&T must divide up into a Long Distance company and 7 "Baby Bells". For 20 plus years, the telecom industry has seen ups and downs. In 1996 another court order forced competetion into the market in the for of CLECs. These companies would be allowed to get services from the "Baby Bells" at a wholesale rate and bill the customer. In otherwords, they were able to sell a service without having to get out of their chairs.

Let’s look at some of the recent events that lead up to an interesting scenario.

• SBC and Bellsouth Merge Celluar Services to create Cingular Wireless.
• Cingular buys AT&T Wireless
• SBC and AT&T merger to create at&t (note lower case)

So, I am already hearing rumors that the new at&t is in talks already with Bellsouth. (Bellsouth serves most of the Southeast US with Local and Long Distance Service and is one of the only remaining "Baby Bells" that survived the Divestiture).

A few years ago, there were talks between AT&T and Bellsouth that ended with no action. At that time, co-workers and I were speculating and I made the statement that within 5 years, all the "Baby Bells" and AT&T would once again be together. Now if at&t and Bellsouth get together and do take action, the majority of the US would have one Local Phone company again.

In conclusion, I stand by my statement a couple years ago… at&t will be the AT&T we remember from the pre-Divestiture days. One company for all your telecom needs, Nationwide.

Chris Leckness (3530 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook

Chris Leckness is the Owner/Administrator of Mobilitysite. He is a Microsoft MVP, Mobile Devices and a member of the exclusive focus group, Mobius. Chris runs a Mobilitysite, GotZune, and a few other smaller sites and blogs. His personal blog is chris.leckness.com.