Food chain
AT&T (the formerly big company) used to own AT&T Wireless. Then they sold the service (but not the ue of the name AT&T) to Cingular, which itself was a joint venture between BellSouth and SBC (formerly SoutWestern Bell).
At this point there was still AT&T, the long distance, networking, etc. company and "AT&T Wireless," owned by Cingular who had to stp using the name AT&T in any form. Then SBC (who owed about half of Cingular) bought AT&T, so you had SBC owning both AT&T and a company that owned the old AT&T Wireless network and customers. SBC decided to change it name to AT&T after the merger. Then AT&T (formerly SBC, formerly SouthWestern bell) decided to buy BellSouth (who owned the other half of Cingular).
So now one company, named AT&T, will own everything: The old SouthWestern Bell, BellSouth, Cingular, AT&T Wireless, and AT&T's long distance/networking/etc. business.
It's all so simple!
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