AT&T/Cingular

[scrivener]

Re: Merger Approval Means Cingular Will Be Renamed AT&T

I love that logo.

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Merger Approval Means Cingular Will Be Renamed AT&T

But really before AT&T it was Honolulu Cellular (Hawaii's first cellular provider). GTE Mobilnet (now Verizon Wireless) had to rent cell signals from Honolulu Cellular until they got their own sites up.

Back then there were no contract plans. You simply bought your phone (around $1300) and you paid straight minutes for peak ($1.50) and off peak ($0.75) with no free minutes anytime.

[NoCal Boy]

Re: Merger Approval Means Cingular Will Be Renamed AT&T

Actually, Cingular was formed from a joint venture between SBC and BellSouth in 2001. Cingular then bought out AT&T Wireless in 2004. In 2005, SBC bought AT&T and decided to rename itself as AT&T. Therefore, Cingular now is a joint venture between the new AT&T and BellSouth. And now that AT&T is buying out BellSouth, Cingular will be wholly owned by AT&T. Confusing enough?

Here in the Bay Area, my carrier went from Pacific Bell Wireless to Cingular and now it'll be AT&T. And before Pac Bell Wireless, Pacific Telesis (the former parent company) spun off another wireless carrier into Airtouch, which was later swallowed up by Verizon. It's so hard to keep up.

An amusing side note to all these mergers is in regard to the local ballpark here, which has gone from Pac Bell Park to SBC Park and now AT&T Park - all in the past three years! Well not so amusing - I'm sure they've rolled the cost of the new signage into the price of my Giants tickets!

[SouthKona]

Re: Merger Approval Means Cingular Will Be Renamed AT&T

quoted source

Let me get this straight: ATT bought Cingular and rebranded its wireless to Cingular, then ATT bought BellSouth which is now renaming Cingular back to ATT?

This is great, because now my old ATT phone that I still use with Cingular (I never changed phones when Cingular took over) will be back to ATT.

[Mango808]

Re: Merger Approval Means Cingular Will Be Renamed AT&T

This is great, because now my old ATT phone that I still use with Cingular (I never changed phones when Cingular took over) will be back to ATT.

Yeah, but if it's one GSM one, it's still not able to use the current Cingular and soon to be at&t SIM cards unless you unlock it.

If you still get one that no use SIM card, then you may not need worry about it until they get rid of the TDMA network.