AT&T Wireless
Encyclopedia
AT&T Wireless Services, Inc., founded in 1987 as McCaw Cellular Communications, Inc., and now legally known as New Cingular Wireless Services, Inc., formerly part of AT&T Corp., is a wireless
telephone
carrier in the United States
, based in Redmond, Washington
, and later traded on the New York Stock Exchange
under the stock symbol "AWE", as a separate entity from its former parent.
On October 26, 2004, AT&T Wireless was acquired by Cingular Wireless
, a joint venture of SBC Communications and BellSouth
, to form the largest wireless carrier in the United States at the time. On November 16, 2004, AT&T Wireless stores were rechristened under the Cingular banner. The legal entity "AT&T Wireless Services, Inc." was renamed "New Cingular Wireless Services, Inc."
In late 2005, SBC (the majority partner in Cingular) acquired the original AT&T, and rebranded as "the new AT&T". Cingular became wholly owned by the new AT&T in December 2006 as a result of the new AT&T's acquisition
of BellSouth
. After the merger, Cingular was renamed AT&T Mobility in early 2007 and remained the largest wireless carrier until 2009 when Verizon acquired Alltel to retake its position as the number one carrier.
AT&T Wireless began in 1987 as McCaw Cellular Communications, Inc.., a cellular telephone pioneer in the United States
. Savvy licensing of cellular spectrum in the early 1980s put McCaw Cellular in an extremely strong position, quickly outpacing the growth of the "Baby Bells" in the emerging market. The company purchased MCI Communications
's mobile businesses in 1986, followed by LIN Broadcasting in 1989, giving them widespread access in all of the major US markets. Partnering with AT&T as a technology provider, McCaw introduced their "Cellular One" service in 1990, the first truly national cellular system. AT&T
purchased 33% of the company in 1992, and arranged a merger in 1994 that made Craig McCaw
one of AT&T's largest shareholders. In 2002, the company was spun off from AT&T to become AT&T Wireless Services
.
In 1966 J. Elroy McCaw sold one of his cable television
holdings in Centralia, Washington
to his three sons, including Craig who was 16 years old at the time. Craig took an increasingly central role in the development of McCaw Communications, and by the early 1980s had grown the company from 2,000 subscribers to about $5 million in annual revenue.
In 1981 McCaw came across an AT&T document about the future of cellular telephony, which predicted that by the turn of the century there would be 900,000 cellular subscribers in the United States. Intrigued, McCaw found that the licenses for cellular spectrum
were being sold at $4.50 per "pop", meaning he could build a base for future subscribers for very low cost. By 1983, McCaw Communications had purchased licenses in six of the 30 largest US markets. McCaw then succeeded in using the licenses and collateral
, based on the AT&T projections, using that collateral to take out loans and buy more licenses, and eventually buying billions of dollars of spectrum. In 1987 he sold the cable business for $755 million, and used this new capital to buy even more cellular licenses.
It was around this time that the first wave of analog cellular telephones were starting to enter the consumer conscience. The Baby Bells
started the process of buying their own licenses, only to find that McCaw owned enough of most of the major markets to lock them out unless they purchased spare licenses from him, at a huge profit. His network of licenses in the major markets was used as a lever to buy, sell or trade licenses in other markets that were not considered profitable, at a considerable discount. In 1986 the company purchased MCI
's wireless operations, cellular and paging, for $122 million, and changed their name to "McCaw Cellular Communications". In 1989 the company outbid BellSouth
for control of LIN Broadcasting, which owned licenses in Houston, Dallas, Los Angeles
, and New York
, paying $3.5 billion, a price that represented $350 per license.
In 1990, McCaw Cellular introduced SS7 signaling across their network. Prior to this, each cell tower in the network connected to local signaling, billing and sets of land-lines. Since only the towers in the area local to the customer's home had access to dialing and routing information, when they traveled to another area calls could not reach them. With the introduction of SS7 signaling, the dialing and routing information could now be switched across the entire network (known technically as Non-Facility Associated Signalling
), tying it together into a single national network. They called the new system "Cellular One", and introduced the concept of roaming charges
. That year, McCaw earned $54 million, making him America's highest-paid chief executive.
The partnership grew in November 1992, when AT&T purchased 1/3 of the company for $3.8 billion. At the time, the company was generating $1.75 billion in annual revenue, and had two million Cellular One subscribers - far more customers than AT&T's earlier projections for all cellular use in the US, at a point almost ten years earlier.
takeover documented in Barbarians at the Gate
. The merger was completed in late 1994, creating AT&T Wireless Group, which was at that time the largest cellular carrier in the US. AT&T kick-started their cellular division with 2 million subscribers. As a result of the merger, Craig McCaw became one of AT&T's largest shareholders, but he refused to sit on the Board of Directors because he couldn't stand long meetings. McCaw left daily operations to focus on Teledesic
, passing control of AT&T Wireless to James Barksdale, and then Steve Hooper when Barksdale left for Netscape
.
Hooper, a long time McCaw Cellular executive, was tapped by AT&T to be the CEO of the newly acquired division. Under his direction, AT&T Wireless grew to be the nation's largest cellular provider by the end of 1997, at which point Hooper and many of the remaining McCaw era executives departed. By 1999 and 2000 the cellular industry began to consolidate and Verizon Wireless
and Cingular Wireless
became the first and second largest national carriers.
The year 1999 also brought John D. Zeglis
as chief executive in October, followed a few months later by Dan Hesse's departure, who had been head of the division since 1997. Over the next year and a half all six McCaw regional presidents left the declining company.
at that time. Just over a year later in July 2001, AT&T Wireless became a separate company rather than a division of AT&T Corp.
In 2003, AT&T Wireless was granted several mobile licenses for Caribbean countries including Barbados
, Grenada
, Saint Lucia
, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
. AT&T Wireless' decline climaxed in 2003 with the FCC mandating the allowance of porting numbers to other carriers. AT&T Wireless experienced a mass exodus of many customers who were fed up with years of degrading service and poor coverage. By the end of 2003, AT&T Wireless faced a public relations nightmare when a new system for adding subscribers and porting numbers in/out was implemented and botched. Realizing that it faced an impossible situation, AT&T Wireless Services, Inc began accepting bids in early 2004 to be acquired.
As of January 1, 2004, the largest single shareholder of AT&T Wireless was Japan
's NTT DoCoMo
, which was one of the first to place a bid to buy the company.
In the middle of 2004 much of the Caribbean operations and Bermuda were agreed to be sold to Digicel Group
.
carrier Vodafone
and American competitor Cingular. Cingular was owned by two Baby Bells; 40% by BellSouth
and 60% by SBC Communications, Inc. Vodafone owns 45% of Verizon Wireless
and had it succeeded in the bid, their share of Verizon Wireless would then have been sold to parent company Verizon Communications
. Cingular emerged victorious February 17 by agreeing to pay more than $41 billion, more than twice the company's recent trading value, to acquire AT&T Wireless. Some analysts have said that although Vodafone, the world's largest mobile operator, was unsuccessful in acquiring the company, it was nonetheless successful in forcing a competitor to overpay for the acquisition of AT&T Wireless.
The sale received US government approval and closed on October 26. The AT&T Wireless brand was retired by Cingular on April 26, 2005, six months after the close of the merger. This was per a pre spin-off agreement with AT&T Corp. that stated that if AT&T Wireless was to be bought by a competitor, the rights to the name AT&T Wireless and the use of the AT&T name in wireless phone service would revert back to AT&T Corp.
AT&T Wireless' prepaid services, Go Phone, was adopted by Cingular Wireless after the merger closed, and is still in use today by the current AT&T Mobility.
and AT&T. It operated a mobile network in Canada
until Rogers bought out AT&T's stake in 2004 and took the company private. See Rogers Wireless
.
SunCom Wireless was a brand name used by three separate companies: Telecorp PCS, Tritel PCS, and Triton PCS (based in Arlington, VA, Jackson, MS, and Berwyn, PA, respectively). All three used the same SunCom logo, but operated as completely independent companies, though all were affiliates of AT&T Wireless, which owned 23% of each company. Telecorp operated primarily in Wisconsin, Iowa, Louisiana, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Puerto Rico. Tritel operated primarily in Mississippi, Kentucky, Alabama, and Tennessee. Triton operated primarily in North and South Carolina and Virginia. In 2002, Telecorp and Tritel completed a merger, while Triton remained independent. In 2003, AT&T Wireless acquired Telecorp/Tritel, and closed the Telecorp headquarters in Arlington, VA.
Cincinnati Bell Wireless started as a joint venture between Cincinnati Bell
and AT&T Wireless, in which AT&T Wireless owned 20%. When AT&T Wireless was purchased by Cingular, control of the 20% passed to Cingular as well. On February 17, 2006, Cincinnati Bell took full control of Cincinnati Bell Wireless by purchasing Cingular's 20% ownership for $80 million.
Then, the new AT&T announced on March 5, 2006 that it would be acquiring BellSouth
's telephone operations and its stake in Cingular Wireless. On December 29, 2006 the FCC gave its final approval to the AT&T and BellSouth merger. With both parent companies merged into one, Cingular Wireless officially became AT&T Mobility LLC in 2007. The rebranding phase was a gradual process but by mid-2007, the Cingular Wireless brand (not the company) was officially discontinued for the AT&T name.
Thus, AT&T as a wireless brand is alive and well, however, the old AT&T Wireless Services company remains defunct. Today, AT&T stores sell all AT&T products and services: Wireless, Landline, Internet, U-Verse, and more. AT&T currently markets all services under one brand, even though the wireless division is commonly referred to as "AT&T wireless" both internally and externally.
Wireless
Wireless telecommunications is the transfer of information between two or more points that are not physically connected. Distances can be short, such as a few meters for television remote control, or as far as thousands or even millions of kilometers for deep-space radio communications...
telephone
Telephone
The telephone , colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sounds, usually the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other...
carrier in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, based in Redmond, Washington
Redmond, Washington
Redmond is a city in King County, Washington, United States, located east of Seattle. The population was 54,144 at the 2010 census,up from 45,256 in 2000....
, and later traded on the New York Stock Exchange
New York Stock Exchange
The New York Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located at 11 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City, USA. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed companies at 13.39 trillion as of Dec 2010...
under the stock symbol "AWE", as a separate entity from its former parent.
On October 26, 2004, AT&T Wireless was acquired by Cingular Wireless
Cingular Wireless
AT&T Mobility LLC is a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T that provides wireless services to 100.7 million subscribers in the United States, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands...
, a joint venture of SBC Communications and BellSouth
BellSouth
BellSouth Corporation is an American telecommunications holding company based in Atlanta, Georgia. BellSouth was one of the seven original Regional Bell Operating Companies after the U.S...
, to form the largest wireless carrier in the United States at the time. On November 16, 2004, AT&T Wireless stores were rechristened under the Cingular banner. The legal entity "AT&T Wireless Services, Inc." was renamed "New Cingular Wireless Services, Inc."
In late 2005, SBC (the majority partner in Cingular) acquired the original AT&T, and rebranded as "the new AT&T". Cingular became wholly owned by the new AT&T in December 2006 as a result of the new AT&T's acquisition
Mergers and acquisitions
Mergers and acquisitions refers to the aspect of corporate strategy, corporate finance and management dealing with the buying, selling, dividing and combining of different companies and similar entities that can help an enterprise grow rapidly in its sector or location of origin, or a new field or...
of BellSouth
BellSouth
BellSouth Corporation is an American telecommunications holding company based in Atlanta, Georgia. BellSouth was one of the seven original Regional Bell Operating Companies after the U.S...
. After the merger, Cingular was renamed AT&T Mobility in early 2007 and remained the largest wireless carrier until 2009 when Verizon acquired Alltel to retake its position as the number one carrier.
McCaw Cellular
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Savvy licensing of cellular spectrum in the early 1980s put McCaw Cellular in an extremely strong position, quickly outpacing the growth of the "Baby Bells" in the emerging market. The company purchased MCI Communications
MCI Communications
MCI Communications Corp. was an American telecommunications company that was instrumental in legal and regulatory changes that led to the breakup of the AT&T monopoly of American telephony and ushered in the competitive long-distance telephone industry. It was headquartered in Washington,...
's mobile businesses in 1986, followed by LIN Broadcasting in 1989, giving them widespread access in all of the major US markets. Partnering with AT&T as a technology provider, McCaw introduced their "Cellular One" service in 1990, the first truly national cellular system. AT&T
AT&T
AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the largest provider of mobile telephony and fixed telephony in the United States, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services...
purchased 33% of the company in 1992, and arranged a merger in 1994 that made Craig McCaw
Craig McCaw
Craig McCaw is a Seattle-area businessman and entrepreneur who achieved success as a pioneer in the cellular phone industry. He is the founder of McCaw Cellular and Clearwire Corporation.-Early life and cable TV beginnings:Craig is the second of four sons of Marion and John Elroy McCaw...
one of AT&T's largest shareholders. In 2002, the company was spun off from AT&T to become AT&T Wireless Services
AT&T Wireless Services
AT&T Wireless Services, Inc., founded in 1987 as McCaw Cellular Communications, Inc., and now legally known as New Cingular Wireless Services, Inc., formerly part of AT&T Corp., is a wireless telephone carrier in the United States, based in Redmond, Washington, and later traded on the New York...
.
In 1966 J. Elroy McCaw sold one of his cable television
Cable television
Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...
holdings in Centralia, Washington
Centralia, Washington
Centralia is a city in Lewis County, Washington, United States. The population was 16,336 at the 2010 census.-History:In pioneer days, Centralia was the halfway stopover point for stagecoaches operating between the Columbia River and Seattle. In 1850, J. G. Cochran came from Missouri with his...
to his three sons, including Craig who was 16 years old at the time. Craig took an increasingly central role in the development of McCaw Communications, and by the early 1980s had grown the company from 2,000 subscribers to about $5 million in annual revenue.
In 1981 McCaw came across an AT&T document about the future of cellular telephony, which predicted that by the turn of the century there would be 900,000 cellular subscribers in the United States. Intrigued, McCaw found that the licenses for cellular spectrum
Cellular frequencies
All cellular phone networks worldwide use a portion of the radio frequency spectrum designated as ultra high frequency, or "UHF", for the transmission and reception of their signals. The ultra high frequency band is also shared with television, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth transmission...
were being sold at $4.50 per "pop", meaning he could build a base for future subscribers for very low cost. By 1983, McCaw Communications had purchased licenses in six of the 30 largest US markets. McCaw then succeeded in using the licenses and collateral
Collateral (finance)
In lending agreements, collateral is a borrower's pledge of specific property to a lender, to secure repayment of a loan.The collateral serves as protection for a lender against a borrower's default - that is, any borrower failing to pay the principal and interest under the terms of a loan obligation...
, based on the AT&T projections, using that collateral to take out loans and buy more licenses, and eventually buying billions of dollars of spectrum. In 1987 he sold the cable business for $755 million, and used this new capital to buy even more cellular licenses.
It was around this time that the first wave of analog cellular telephones were starting to enter the consumer conscience. The Baby Bells
Regional Bell Operating Company
The Regional Bell Operating Companies are the result of United States v. AT&T, the U.S. Department of Justice antitrust suit against the former American Telephone & Telegraph Company . On January 8, 1982, AT&T Corp. settled the suit and agreed to divest its local exchange service operating...
started the process of buying their own licenses, only to find that McCaw owned enough of most of the major markets to lock them out unless they purchased spare licenses from him, at a huge profit. His network of licenses in the major markets was used as a lever to buy, sell or trade licenses in other markets that were not considered profitable, at a considerable discount. In 1986 the company purchased MCI
MCI Communications
MCI Communications Corp. was an American telecommunications company that was instrumental in legal and regulatory changes that led to the breakup of the AT&T monopoly of American telephony and ushered in the competitive long-distance telephone industry. It was headquartered in Washington,...
's wireless operations, cellular and paging, for $122 million, and changed their name to "McCaw Cellular Communications". In 1989 the company outbid BellSouth
BellSouth
BellSouth Corporation is an American telecommunications holding company based in Atlanta, Georgia. BellSouth was one of the seven original Regional Bell Operating Companies after the U.S...
for control of LIN Broadcasting, which owned licenses in Houston, Dallas, Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, and New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, paying $3.5 billion, a price that represented $350 per license.
Cellular One
At this point McCaw's focus turned from dealing licenses to servicing the network, signing up customers in what was now a maturing technology on the cusp of explosive growth. In order to handle the customer side of the business, McCaw turned to AT&T for technology.In 1990, McCaw Cellular introduced SS7 signaling across their network. Prior to this, each cell tower in the network connected to local signaling, billing and sets of land-lines. Since only the towers in the area local to the customer's home had access to dialing and routing information, when they traveled to another area calls could not reach them. With the introduction of SS7 signaling, the dialing and routing information could now be switched across the entire network (known technically as Non-Facility Associated Signalling
Non-Facility Associated Signalling
Non-Facility Associated Signalling or NFAS is a Primary Rate Interface configuration whereby multiple T1 carriers share a signaling channel ....
), tying it together into a single national network. They called the new system "Cellular One", and introduced the concept of roaming charges
Roaming
In wireless telecommunications, roaming is a general term referring to the extension of connectivity service in a location that is different from the home location where the service was registered. Roaming ensures that the wireless device is kept connected to the network, without losing the...
. That year, McCaw earned $54 million, making him America's highest-paid chief executive.
The partnership grew in November 1992, when AT&T purchased 1/3 of the company for $3.8 billion. At the time, the company was generating $1.75 billion in annual revenue, and had two million Cellular One subscribers - far more customers than AT&T's earlier projections for all cellular use in the US, at a point almost ten years earlier.
Purchase by AT&T Corp.
In 1994 the marriage of the two companies was consummated when AT&T purchased the rest of McCaw Cellular for $11.5 billion, at that time the second largest merger in US history, second only to the RJR NabiscoRJR Nabisco
RJR Nabisco, Inc., was an American conglomerate formed in 1985 by the merger of Nabisco Brands and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. RJR Nabisco was purchased in 1988 by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co...
takeover documented in Barbarians at the Gate
Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco
Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco is a 1990 book about the leveraged buyout of RJR Nabisco, written by investigative journalists Bryan Burrough and John Helyar. The book is based upon a series of articles written by the authors for The Wall Street Journal...
. The merger was completed in late 1994, creating AT&T Wireless Group, which was at that time the largest cellular carrier in the US. AT&T kick-started their cellular division with 2 million subscribers. As a result of the merger, Craig McCaw became one of AT&T's largest shareholders, but he refused to sit on the Board of Directors because he couldn't stand long meetings. McCaw left daily operations to focus on Teledesic
Teledesic
Teledesic was a company founded in the 1990s to build a commercial broadband satellite constellation for Internet services. Using low-earth orbiting satellites small antennas could be used to provide uplinks of as much as 100 Mbit/second and downlinks of up to 720 Mbit/second...
, passing control of AT&T Wireless to James Barksdale, and then Steve Hooper when Barksdale left for Netscape
Netscape
Netscape Communications is a US computer services company, best known for Netscape Navigator, its web browser. When it was an independent company, its headquarters were in Mountain View, California...
.
Hooper, a long time McCaw Cellular executive, was tapped by AT&T to be the CEO of the newly acquired division. Under his direction, AT&T Wireless grew to be the nation's largest cellular provider by the end of 1997, at which point Hooper and many of the remaining McCaw era executives departed. By 1999 and 2000 the cellular industry began to consolidate and Verizon Wireless
Verizon Wireless
Cellco Partnership, doing business as Verizon Wireless, is one of the largest mobile network operators in the United States. The network has 107.7 million subscribers as of 2011, making it the largest wireless service provider in America....
and Cingular Wireless
Cingular Wireless
AT&T Mobility LLC is a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T that provides wireless services to 100.7 million subscribers in the United States, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands...
became the first and second largest national carriers.
The year 1999 also brought John D. Zeglis
John D. Zeglis
John D. Zeglis served as the President of AT&T and the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of AT&T Wireless.-Early life:Mr. Zeglis grew up in the farming community of Momence, Illinois. His father, Donald, worked as a lawyer within the town. As a child, Mr. Zeglis enjoyed playing basketball...
as chief executive in October, followed a few months later by Dan Hesse's departure, who had been head of the division since 1997. Over the next year and a half all six McCaw regional presidents left the declining company.
Spinoff
In April 2000, AT&T Wireless became a separately traded entity with the world's largest initial public offeringInitial public offering
An initial public offering or stock market launch, is the first sale of stock by a private company to the public. It can be used by either small or large companies to raise expansion capital and become publicly traded enterprises...
at that time. Just over a year later in July 2001, AT&T Wireless became a separate company rather than a division of AT&T Corp.
In 2003, AT&T Wireless was granted several mobile licenses for Caribbean countries including Barbados
Barbados
Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles. It is in length and as much as in width, amounting to . It is situated in the western area of the North Atlantic and 100 kilometres east of the Windward Islands and the Caribbean Sea; therein, it is about east of the islands of Saint...
, Grenada
Grenada
Grenada is an island country and Commonwealth Realm consisting of the island of Grenada and six smaller islands at the southern end of the Grenadines in the southeastern Caribbean Sea...
, Saint Lucia
Saint Lucia
Saint Lucia is an island country in the eastern Caribbean Sea on the boundary with the Atlantic Ocean. Part of the Lesser Antilles, it is located north/northeast of the island of Saint Vincent, northwest of Barbados and south of Martinique. It covers a land area of 620 km2 and has an...
, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is an island country in the Lesser Antilles chain, namely in the southern portion of the Windward Islands, which lie at the southern end of the eastern border of the Caribbean Sea where the latter meets the Atlantic Ocean....
. AT&T Wireless' decline climaxed in 2003 with the FCC mandating the allowance of porting numbers to other carriers. AT&T Wireless experienced a mass exodus of many customers who were fed up with years of degrading service and poor coverage. By the end of 2003, AT&T Wireless faced a public relations nightmare when a new system for adding subscribers and porting numbers in/out was implemented and botched. Realizing that it faced an impossible situation, AT&T Wireless Services, Inc began accepting bids in early 2004 to be acquired.
As of January 1, 2004, the largest single shareholder of AT&T Wireless was Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
's NTT DoCoMo
NTT DoCoMo
is the predominant mobile phone operator in Japan. The name is officially an abbreviation of the phrase, "do communications over the mobile network", and is also from a compound word dokomo, meaning "everywhere" in Japanese. Docomo provides phone, video phone , i-mode , and mail services...
, which was one of the first to place a bid to buy the company.
In the middle of 2004 much of the Caribbean operations and Bermuda were agreed to be sold to Digicel Group
Digicel
Digicel is a mobile phone network provider covering parts of Oceania, Central America, and the Caribbean regions. The company is owned by Irishman Denis O'Brien, is incorporated in Bermuda, and based in Jamaica. It provides mobile services in 26 countries and territories throughout the Caribbean...
.
Acquisition by Cingular
On February 13, 2004, AT&T Wireless accepted bids for acquisition of the wireless company. The two top bidders were BritishUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
carrier Vodafone
Vodafone
Vodafone Group Plc is a global telecommunications company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the world's largest mobile telecommunications company measured by revenues and the world's second-largest measured by subscribers , with around 341 million proportionate subscribers as of...
and American competitor Cingular. Cingular was owned by two Baby Bells; 40% by BellSouth
BellSouth
BellSouth Corporation is an American telecommunications holding company based in Atlanta, Georgia. BellSouth was one of the seven original Regional Bell Operating Companies after the U.S...
and 60% by SBC Communications, Inc. Vodafone owns 45% of Verizon Wireless
Verizon Wireless
Cellco Partnership, doing business as Verizon Wireless, is one of the largest mobile network operators in the United States. The network has 107.7 million subscribers as of 2011, making it the largest wireless service provider in America....
and had it succeeded in the bid, their share of Verizon Wireless would then have been sold to parent company Verizon Communications
Verizon Communications
Verizon Communications Inc. is a global broadband and telecommunications company and a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average...
. Cingular emerged victorious February 17 by agreeing to pay more than $41 billion, more than twice the company's recent trading value, to acquire AT&T Wireless. Some analysts have said that although Vodafone, the world's largest mobile operator, was unsuccessful in acquiring the company, it was nonetheless successful in forcing a competitor to overpay for the acquisition of AT&T Wireless.
The sale received US government approval and closed on October 26. The AT&T Wireless brand was retired by Cingular on April 26, 2005, six months after the close of the merger. This was per a pre spin-off agreement with AT&T Corp. that stated that if AT&T Wireless was to be bought by a competitor, the rights to the name AT&T Wireless and the use of the AT&T name in wireless phone service would revert back to AT&T Corp.
AT&T Wireless' prepaid services, Go Phone, was adopted by Cingular Wireless after the merger closed, and is still in use today by the current AT&T Mobility.
Partnerships
Rogers AT&T Wireless was a publicly traded partnership between RogersRogers Communications
Rogers Communications Inc. is one of Canada's largest communications companies, particularly in the field of wireless communications, cable television, home phone and internet with additional telecommunications and mass media assets...
and AT&T. It operated a mobile network in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
until Rogers bought out AT&T's stake in 2004 and took the company private. See Rogers Wireless
Rogers Wireless
Rogers Wireless is a wireless telecommunications provider offering mobile phone and data services throughout Canada using Global System for Mobile Communications and Universal Mobile Telecommunications System technology. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Rogers Communications...
.
SunCom Wireless was a brand name used by three separate companies: Telecorp PCS, Tritel PCS, and Triton PCS (based in Arlington, VA, Jackson, MS, and Berwyn, PA, respectively). All three used the same SunCom logo, but operated as completely independent companies, though all were affiliates of AT&T Wireless, which owned 23% of each company. Telecorp operated primarily in Wisconsin, Iowa, Louisiana, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Puerto Rico. Tritel operated primarily in Mississippi, Kentucky, Alabama, and Tennessee. Triton operated primarily in North and South Carolina and Virginia. In 2002, Telecorp and Tritel completed a merger, while Triton remained independent. In 2003, AT&T Wireless acquired Telecorp/Tritel, and closed the Telecorp headquarters in Arlington, VA.
Cincinnati Bell Wireless started as a joint venture between Cincinnati Bell
Cincinnati Bell
Cincinnati Bell is the dominant telephone company for Cincinnati, Ohio, and its nearby suburbs in the U.S. states of Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky. The parent company is named Cincinnati Bell Inc. Its incumbent local exchange carrier subsidiary uses the name Cincinnati Bell Telephone Company LLC,...
and AT&T Wireless, in which AT&T Wireless owned 20%. When AT&T Wireless was purchased by Cingular, control of the 20% passed to Cingular as well. On February 17, 2006, Cincinnati Bell took full control of Cincinnati Bell Wireless by purchasing Cingular's 20% ownership for $80 million.
AT&T brand returns to wireless
The AT&T brand in wireless ended in 2004, but it would be brought back a few years later. On November 18, 2005, SBC Communications, Inc. completed a merger with AT&T Corp., and took on the name AT&T and created a new modern globe logo. After the merger, rumors surfaced of a revival of AT&T's brand in wireless via a rebranding of Cingular, however Cingular, Bellsouth, and the new AT&T maintained that the Cingular brand would remain for the time being.Then, the new AT&T announced on March 5, 2006 that it would be acquiring BellSouth
BellSouth
BellSouth Corporation is an American telecommunications holding company based in Atlanta, Georgia. BellSouth was one of the seven original Regional Bell Operating Companies after the U.S...
's telephone operations and its stake in Cingular Wireless. On December 29, 2006 the FCC gave its final approval to the AT&T and BellSouth merger. With both parent companies merged into one, Cingular Wireless officially became AT&T Mobility LLC in 2007. The rebranding phase was a gradual process but by mid-2007, the Cingular Wireless brand (not the company) was officially discontinued for the AT&T name.
Thus, AT&T as a wireless brand is alive and well, however, the old AT&T Wireless Services company remains defunct. Today, AT&T stores sell all AT&T products and services: Wireless, Landline, Internet, U-Verse, and more. AT&T currently markets all services under one brand, even though the wireless division is commonly referred to as "AT&T wireless" both internally and externally.
Further reading
- O. Casey Corr, "Money from Thin Air", Crown Business, 2000, ISBN 0-8129-2697-8
External links
- AT&T Mobility
- CNN Money - AT&T and Dobson Communications merger plans