Talk:AT&T

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A Wikipedian removed AT&T from the good article list. There are suggestions below for improving areas to satisfy the good article criteria. Once the objections are addressed, renominate the article as a good article. If you disagree with the objections, you can seek a review. Removal date: 28 January 2007

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	To-do list for AT&T:	edit  · history  · watch  · refresh
As usual, make sure that the page remains vandalism-free, and keep the page up to date, and at its best. aido2002 01:08, 7 June 2006 (UTC) Add more information about the the products and services of AT&T. --Blackjack48 02:09, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
Priority 1 (top)

Contents 1 Older comments 2 Requested move (archived) 2.1 Discussion (archived) 3 history 4 AT&T | SBC Merger 5 Wheres SBC? 6 Intro 7 Summation that may be of interest 8 This article needs new stuff 9 What's with this link?? 10 Conair refrence 11 Popular Science's Flowchart For AT&T? 12 Little off topic... 13 NSA controversy 14 Wired Leaks NSA/AT&T Spying Documents 15 Split into 2 16 Vote here to split in to 2 17 AT&T's Products/Services 18 Bellsouth just announced they will stop fleecing customers to get merger oked. 19 Competitors??? 20 Complete chart? 21 Delisted GA 22 Merge Suggested 23 Bell logo. 24 Merge with AT&T Unity

[edit] Older comments

I have seen various dates for founding of the current AT&T - 2005, 1984, 1885, and 1877. Which is it?

• According to this PDF file, 1885 is when the AT&T was formed as a subsidary to the American Bell Telephone Co. In 1984, AT&T was broken up into baby bells which contain Southwestern Bell (later became SBC when it acquired a couple of other former baby bells). I think the reason why Wikipedia is listing it as 1877 because of the original parent company of AT&T was founded in that year. --J. Nguyen 01:01, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move (archived)

The article refers to AT&T Inc. Shouldn't the title correspond with that? --Akhristov 22:48, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

---

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one sentence explanation, then sign your vote with ~~~~

• Support, I agree, the title should read AT&T Inc.--Roadrunner3000 00:32, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose, Wikipedia naming conventions dictate the use of common names. Rhobite 03:47, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose per Rhobite. —jiy (talk) 07:33, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose article covers history of AT&T, Inc, and predecessor companies including AT&T Corp and SBC Communications. In everyday useage company will be refered to as just AT&T [[[User:Hypernick1980|Hypernick1980]] 10:21, 25 November 2005 (UTC)]
• Oppose—"AT&T" is obviously the common name, and the company was not always "AT&T, Inc." Austin Hair ✍ ✉ 04:09, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose. The "Inc." in the lead paragraph is there only to distinguish the new company from the old (AT&T Corp.).
• Support The company's name is at&t Inc. That's more than enough reason to change Ke5crz 07:12, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose. The more common name should be used. Dystopos 14:33, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose AT&T is the name that even the company use, see their latest press release--Bob 16:44, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose If there were a reference to AT&T that showed a significant difference, then yes. But there isn't. The addition of Inc. to the name wouldn't add anything to the article, since we all know it's a corporation. And other corporation articles don't follow this standard. Chadlupkes 14:29, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion (archived)

Add any additional comments

• • Shouldn't the requested move be to at&t if anything? after all, the companies new name is in lower case letters?--Bob 00:46, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Actually, the lower case letters are just a style point on their logo. The official name is still in upper case. - TexasAndroid 14:40, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
      • You are correct --Bob 16:44, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

• Please sign your posts. --Akhristov 23:48, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

• Looks like this move is opposed. Should I close the discussion or wait a little longer? --Akhristov 02:18, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] history

A lot of the history here is the same as in the Bell System article. Obviously, they shouldn't be merged, but maybe this one should be shortened and reference the Bell System article?

[edit] AT&T | SBC Merger

The founded date shouuld be November 28,2005 because the company created in 1887 ceased to exsist on that date.

The King is Dead, Long Live the King. The original company may have ceased to exist on the financial books, but the article still refers to it, and all the assets of the AT&T that existed on November 27, 2005 are now part of the new company. We need to keep history in perspective. Chadlupkes 14:25, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wheres SBC?

This article does a great job describing AT&T up until the point of the merge, however it lacks enough information about the company SBC which is what AT&T has become. There should be a seperate article specifically about SBC before its name change, and what it was before being combined with AT&T. I suggest we pull up the old SBC article and use it for that purpose. --69.232.197.133 03:26, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't see a problem using the SBC article as a "History" article. Besides, it was SBC who bought AT&T, not the other way around, and I feel this fact gets lost in the article in it's current format.Dknights411 06:38, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Intro

Why does the intro refer to "local long distance"? I thought it was a mistake, but the Long distance article says there is such a thing. But doesn't AT&T do regular long distance as well? Wkdewey 01:42, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Summation that may be of interest

I've prepared a summary of what happened to the equity investors in the old AT&T, from the perspective of a hypothetical investor who purchased 100 shares in 1970. My summary is not NPOV and is to some extent original research, so I'm not going to put it in the article directly, but the information there may be of some utility to future editors of this article. (Note that I explicitly exclude dividends, which are much more difficult to account for, particularly when converting to constant dollars.) 18.26.0.5 18:51, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] This article needs new stuff

AT&T bought BellSouth....http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/05/ma-bell-returns-atandt-buys-bellsouth-for-67-billion/ - Unsigned post

• There have been additions about the bellsouth merger already, but it has not been approved yet (a foregone conclusion in the US at this time, true, but it's still not finalized yet. Daniel Pritchard 16:32, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What's with this link??

Why's there a link to "BellIsBack.com"? The site is just parked! Daniel Pritchard 16:32, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

That was, briefly, a very funny one-page site, where the SBC and AT&T logos morphed into the old Bell System logo. AT&T arranged to shut it down. It looked real. --John Nagle 18:40, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Conair refrence

The link to the conair, seems to be a diffrent conair than the one being talked about —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.19.147.2 (talk • contribs) .

[edit] Popular Science's Flowchart For AT&T?

I remember a while back...I think in 2003...Popular Science had a flowchart that depicted the consumption of AT&T that occurred. I went on the website for the archives, but alas, they only have articles only as far back as 2004.

Would anyone happen to have a link to the article/a copy of the issue that could scan it and sent it to me?

--Nelson 00:23, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Little off topic...

I'm sorry to go slightly off topic here, but if you are interested in editing business articles you may want to look into Wikibiz, the Wiki I started, hosted on Wikia. It is likea Wikipedia, but just for businesses. [www.business.wikia.com]. I'm sorry to veer off topic, we now return to our regularly scheduled AT&T Disscussion. Aidan C. Siegel 04:11, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NSA controversy

There are two paragraphs:

• 2005 - Phone calls were recorded and sent to the NSA
• 2006 - Records (not recordings) of calls were sent to the NSA

Is this a typo or two incidents? Either way it should be clarified. -Harmil 20:26, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Oops! The 2005 date is a typo, by my slip of the keyboard, it should say 2006 - news reports on KCTV in Kansas City reported that calls were recorded, however, they may have meant calls were recorded as in documented. KansasCity 04:12, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

OK, I've re-merged the two. There is now just one combined paragraph that references the NSA call database. -Harmil 11:25, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

The new material on a change in AT&T privacy policy only references the SF Chronicle article. I can find no backup for it anywhere, including on AT&T's web site. Can anyone verify that such a new policy was actually announced, and what either the announcement or the policy itself says? --SteveG23 16:50, 22 June 2006 (UTC)SteveG23

[edit] Wired Leaks NSA/AT&T Spying Documents

Maybe this document and related information should be added to this story;

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70944-0.html

Basicly, this PDF file details how the NSA is wiretapping on internet traffic by splitting optical cables.

I think it is fine.

[edit] Split into 2

The old ATT is gone. I thijnk we should make a new article, for ATT before merger. Discuss? Aido2002 22:08, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

• How about waiting a week after the proposal to gather a consensus, and flagging the article for a aplit before actually doing the split, I personally oppose the move. With AT&T being aquired by SBC, the history of AT&T which is also the history of SBC prior to 1984 was also aquired, but I guess it is just a little too late. Hypernick1980 20:34, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
• I also oppose the move, since AT&T and SBC both started as part of the original AT&T (pre-breakup). This split should be undone. æle ✆ 2006-06-02t03:18z

The page was split already, BEFORE both of these comments. DO NOT post anymore to this category, the page was split, with good reason, and there is no pint to debateing it further. aido2002 19:46, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

There is a reason to debate it, the article was a good article the way it was before. The split was not properly proposed. The articles have been rejoined and, the split has been properly proposed to allow for a consenus to be reachedHypernick1980 20:54, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vote here to split in to 2

• Should the AT&T article be split in to 2 articles one that covers AT&T from 1885-2005 and another that covers AT&T from 2005-present

• Opposemakes it easier for readers to read about the history of this great company by having all the basics in one page. Hypernick1980 20:54, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose Why 2005? Why not the breakup of 1983? We already have Bell System as a separate article that treads common ground with this one. I might accept a separate article History of AT&T if this needs to be shorter, but not an arbitrary date, which would probably violate WP:NOR.  ProhibitOnions  ^(T) 21:00, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
• Support The article that was split from the main AT&T article (AT&T (1885-2005) was justified on the basis that an article called Viacom (1971-2005) exists. The AT&T (1885-2005) article details the defunct holding company that existed from 1885-2005. The AT&T article, without the history of AT&T Corporation, should detail the holding company SBC Communications that purchased AT&T and changed its name to AT&T, and its current status as a merged company. KansasCity 00:47, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Additionally, this situation can be compared to the currently existing MCI Communications and MCI articles: MCI Communications details the history of the (now defunct) entity purchased by WorldCom; MCI details the history of WorldCom and its status as a merged company that eventually renamed itself MCI. KansasCity 01:01, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

• Support What is wrong with splitting the article? After looking at what was done in the case of MCI Communications/MCI WorldCom, I say split the article. ColbyJack 02:26, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
• Support Sometimes its confusing when making a statement about the various stages of this company. Example. When AT&T("Ma Bell") was the largest U.S. cable company, then sold those units off.(which SBC-- didn't do.) AT&T also sold AT&T Wireless off to SBC/Cingular. Then AT&T Consumer became SBC. Just thinking ahead, this same situation is going to happen on the Cingular article. Because it follows the path: AT&T Wireless + Cingular ---> Cingular --> AT&T Wireless(eventually) all of the old information about AT&T Wireless (existing info) might become cannibalized when Cingular becomes re-merged back into AT&T Wireless' article down the road. CaribDigita 02:52, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
• Support There is a new AT&T! It isn't the same company! It's the same thing as if the new AT&T was called Phone Corp.!!! AND BESIDES!! Why are people waiting until NOW, after the splitting to argue!!! A very annoyed aido2002 05:57, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose per Hypernick1980. Ardenn 20:18, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
• Weak Support It is a logical break (even though there are others as well). I would prefer that the daughter article be renamed History of AT&T. Eluchil404 23:33, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Note:Due to the obvious concensus here, the voting will end at 8:00PM EDT/7:00PM CDT/6:00PM MDT/5:00PM PDT/1:00 UTC, June 6,2006 (In EDT Time Zone) and acted on.

As promised, due to the obvious concensus, voting has ended. The AT&T page will remain split, as it was.

[edit] AT&T's Products/Services

I think we need to put more information about AT&T's products and services. We mention none of their phone plans and the word "DSL" is only mentioned once. Most of the content is about the merger right now. --Blackjack48 02:08, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Action taken and the request may be fulfilled. Please check sub section for completeness. Content added is minimal stub. Neutralaccounting 00:53, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bellsouth just announced they will stop fleecing customers to get merger oked.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/techinvestor/corporatenews/2006-08-27-fcc-verizon_x.htm http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/telecom/2006-08-30-verizon-surcharge_x.htm

[edit] Competitors???

On every RBOC page, AT&T, BellSouth, Verizon, and Qwest, there is a section "Comepetitors", and in each is listed the other RBOCS, as well as various independant ILECs. The independants I could see, as they may be a CLEC in various Bell areas, but the RBOCs do not compete with eachother, in other words, they don't intrude on eachother's turf for LEC service.

I think the competitors section on the RBOC pages are irrelevant, inaccurate, and incomplete (they list few if any of the actual CLECs that "compete" with the Bell company), and irrelevant. X570 08:38, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Complete chart?

24.4.195.251 changed the chart from the one concerning AT&T only to the complete one concerning AT&T, Verizon, and Qwest. I believe this one is beyond the scope of this article but I figured I'd discuss this before being quick to revert the change. X570 19:36, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Delisted GA

I'm delisting this GA based on the fact that it was arbitrarily added in after it had been removed [1] and apparently didn't go through a formal nominating process. Hbdragon88 02:54, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge Suggested

Considering that the "new" AT&T owns all of the original assets, and that it is a separate company in law only versus principle, I think that we should merge the old and the new. AT&T is an old company with a lot of history, so I don't think we should demote the old one on basis of technicality. Telepheedian 18:15, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree, and this is how it once was. AT&T and former AT&T company coverage on Wikipedia is a mess, and a certain Wikiproject focused only on pre-84 AT&T is doing more harm than good, for one reason is that its one man band sees more distinction than really exists between pre-84 AT&T and the post-84 companies, and that pre-84 AT&T was composed of many seperate subsidiaries, all of which currently exist as they always have under AT&T, Verizon, Qwest, Lucent-Alcatel, Avaya, Telcordia, and Advanced American Telephones/VTech. X570 07:43, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree also. The two articles are essentially talking about the same company, so why not merge the two together. Bentoman 07:20, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

No, the articles should not be merged. AT&T Inc. and AT&T Corporation are two different companies. Merging the two would cause much confusion. KansasCity 19:03, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

No, they should stay seperate. This has been discussed earlier above us on this talk page. They are two completely separate. And i dont see the "demoting" exactly.. Yaanch^Speak!

No. The articles should NOT be merged. The companies are separate, and deserve separate WP entries. --Mhking 22:27, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes The articles should be merged, they should have never been seperated to begin with Hypernick1980 02:23, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I suggest keeping them separate The old company has enough history that people in the future (say 50 years from now) may want to access info on the forner "Ma Bell" as it was. If you merge the two no matter how you try- eventually much of the old history will get lost in time and you may not have a resource to find info on the old "Ma Bell". Ofcourse it's not totally gone you can always pay companies like "FT.com" or "Hoovers.com" to see defunct company profiles but it would be nice if there were also free open source profiiles on major companies like AT&T which did leave a huge mark on the country. CaribDigita 03:12, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

If keeping separate, then the title of the article should at least change to reflect the two separate companies, the current one with AT&T Inc. and other AT&T Corporation, or something simlar. Bentoman 08:29, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

What do you mean, Bentoman? The article on the old company is "American Telephone & Telegraph Company" and the new one "AT&T". Plus there's the note on top of both articles to avoid confusion ("This article describes the former AT&T Corp. that existed from 1885–2005. See AT&T Inc. for the current company.") Sean Hayford O'Leary 18:17, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree to the merging of the articles. Consolidation of information CAN BE DONE PROPERLY in such a way that the histories of all pre-merger companies can be properly preserved in a merged article. Yes, it will take some effort, but its a worthwhile effort nonetheless. Having multiple articles for different companies/corporations that has a common history and are now operating as one can lead to confusion/misunderstanding on the part of people unfamiliar to the topic.

No. There are clearly problems with the articles as they are, but merging them will only make matters worse. The current AT&T&T article needs to be simplified, not made more complicated, and much of the content moved to more appropriate pages. --Squiggleslash 23:28, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Simplification and merging are not mutually exclusive. --Dystopos 00:14, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I disagree completely. The two companies are barely related, the original AT&T has a long history that would be required for any encyclopedia covering the topic, and the new company is a diverse collection of different operations that, again, need to be covered by the encyclopedia. Merging two complex articles, about two entities that share little but a name and one being made up in part of some of the components of the other, strikes me as bound to cause even more confusion and more complexity. We need to keep them seperate, we need to simplify this article - which fundamentally is about SBC - and move much of the information out of it.

And, FWIW, if we were to merge the two, why not also merge it with Verizon and Qwest? Because neither bought the name? If the intent is to show where the old AT&T is today, then that would make sense. But again, we're looking at turning two already complex articles into a major messfest.

I stand by no, it's the wrong solution to an actual problem. It doesn't solve any of the issues with the two articles, it just makes matters even worse. --Squiggleslash 14:12, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

No As mentioned before, these are two different companies: AT&T, Inc. and AT&T Corp. Besides the technical part of this, AT&T Inc., the new company, seems to be doing a lot of marketing to reimage them selves as a "new" company (i.e. "We are not your mother's Ma Bell"). Keeping the two articles separate emphasizes the difference between the old and the new.--Janus657 21:22, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

No These are two different companies and to add to that, these are not even the same company, just basically a different company with the same name with the old companies assets. Amlder20 23:29, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

No The only reason I see to merge them is that the new corporation took a similar name as the old one. Think about it like this: when a corporation buys out another corporation, do we merge the articles? The old AT&T has such a huge history, legacy, and much more. When another corporation takes over AT&T's assets, do they take over everything else that corporation had, like its history? No. Hell, if we merged articles everytime a corporation bought out another corporation, we'd have something like two articles on telephone companies. Jesuschex 05:07, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Strong No Truly different companies. The "Old" AT&T has such a long and huge past while the "net" AT&T wants to forget about it. Best kept sepereate. The last time both were together, it was a nuclear mess. Just create a disambiguation page telling which is which. Loompyloompy313 00:30, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Strong No There's a major difference between the content relating the historical AT&T and current AT&T. That is, even if all assets of the old company are owned by the new one, the content of the article about the old company pertains to the old company and is not relevant to the current AT&T Inc. It's important to ensure the historical information is properly preserved and emphasized, and that won't happen in one article. Sean Hayford O'Leary 18:11, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Stong No for all the reasons listed above. They are very different companies. Cornell Rockey 19:37, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Strong No In the interest of not making a huge, behemoth that would have to juggle pre-split AT&T, Southwestern Bell/SBC, post-split AT&T and "the new" AT&T (and, if someone decides not to stop there, potentially Pacific Bell, BellSouth and Cingular as well), we must have separate articles. --Kitch ^{(Talk : Contrib)} 22:16, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Strong Yes, in consideration of how the SBC Communications is writen. Actually SBC and Bell South were part of AT&T before the Divestiture. Miaers 22:25, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually, this AT&T was SBC Communications. This is not the old AT&T. --Kitch ^{(Talk : Contrib)} 12:38, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

No. The info is manageable in two distinct articles; there's just too much there to combine them without mass confusion. Lambertman 20:19, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

No Not only because of the above reasons, but if nothing else, combining the two articles would make it way too long. It makes more logistical sense to have two seperate articles, covering two different incarnations of AT&T, one historical and one current. Dknights411 01:55, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

No This article is about a former Baby Bell that now owns 11 of the 24 former Baby Bells, and the other article is about the original Ma Bell which legally has been disestablished. In addition, the article would be too long. AEMoreira042281 22:52, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Strong No per Hayfordoleary and others. 1ne 09:46, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

No Per Hayfordoleary and Lambertman. TheQuandry 19:40, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

No Merging the two articles would demote the old AT&T; keeping them separate does not. This new company is "AT&T" in name only. --Captadam 17:42, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bell logo.

• AT&T Co. was not allowed to use the bell logo after 1984.

Does anyone know if AT&T Inc. is allowed to use the bell logo now?

• I thought the new swirling globe logo was just a rebranding for Ma Bell in the 90's, e.g. e.g. when AT&T starting becoming a Cable provider and the like and needed a logo that was no longer just about the "bell" a.k.a. old long distance and POTS system. CaribDigita 03:16, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

• I think technically, the new AT&T could use the Bell logo, since the logo was authorized to all the Baby Bell, and in reality the new AT&T is really SBC rebranded. Just as you mention about the old AT&T wanting to move away from LDT and POTS back in the 90s, I don't think we'll ever see the current company use the logo, other than in a historic sense. AT&T wants customers to see them as more than just a phone company, which the Bell logo is pretty much the icon for. In addition, I'm sure AT&T wants to distance itself from as many similarities of the old Bell System as possible, keeping those in government from getting any ideas of repeating 1984 all over again. --Brownings 03:35, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

• AT&T is allowed to use the Bell logo and name, and does use in a sense, that it licenses it to Conairphone for their Southwestern Bell Freedom phone brand: http://www.swbfreedomphone.com/, also they still use it for the time being in BellSouth Telecommunications territory, and payhones that still sport the Bell logo on signs is considered active use. X570 14:04, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

• Actually the current swirling globe was created when SBC bought out the "old" AT&T and assumed the brand identity to make the "new" AT&T. The old globe was created because AT&T was disallowed to use the Bell as part of its brand identity, and was unveiled the day the Baby Bell split became final. --Kitch ^{(Talk : Contrib)} 12:42, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge with AT&T Unity

AT&T Unity Plan needs to be merged into the main AT&T article as a section. The Unity plan is badly written and really has no real purpose as it is not a separate AT&T company, it is just a combination of billing options. KansasCity 01:29, 28 March 2007 (UTC)