Any Happy AT&T Wireless customers out there?

[joepole]

No, the BellSouth/AT&T merger hasn't actually gone through yet, it has only been announced. It has yet to be approved by the FCC, but should any day now.

Also, the original breakup was into 7 RBOCS (or nine, depending on what you consider a breakup). Now there are four, soon to be three.

[rhertz]

Originally Posted by joepole

No, the BellSouth/AT&T merger hasn't actually gone through yet, it has only been announced. It has yet to be approved by the FCC, but should any day now.

Also, the original breakup was into 7 RBOCS (or nine, depending on what you consider a breakup). Now there are four, soon to be three.

Many thanks for the clarifications joepole! What I do remember is that AT&T was once Bell Labs who invented the transistor (before I was born) and Western Electric who made the phones.

[joepole]

Yep, Bell Labs was part of AT&T until the breakup, at which point it became part of Western Electric (which changed its name to AT&T Bell Labs or something similar). It also kind of sort of split into Belcore, which provided Bell Labs-like services to the RBOCs, but neither company has been anywhere near as important/influential as Bell Labs was back in the day.

They didn't just invent the transistor there, they invented UNIX (and c), lasers, faxes, and wireless networking, just to name a few things.

By the way, Bell Labs became Western Electric, which became AT&T Bell Labs, which spun off into Lucent, which sucks now and is being bought by Alcatel.

[geodood]

Originally Posted by joepole

Yep, Bell Labs was part of AT&T until the breakup, at which point it became part of Western Electric (which changed its name to AT&T Bell Labs or something similar). It also kind of sort of split into Belcore, which provided Bell Labs-like services to the RBOCs, but neither company has been anywhere near as important/influential as Bell Labs was back in the day.

They didn't just invent the transistor there, they invented UNIX (and c), lasers, faxes, and wireless networking, just to name a few things.

By the way, Bell Labs became Western Electric, which became AT&T Bell Labs, which spun off into Lucent, which sucks now and is being bought by Alcatel.

Your telecom knowledge is considerable! We should have drinks! My telco experiences are more "post 1996" but I do love the old lore. Yea it's sad how Lucent spun downhill. Alcatel, has a pretty good name as I recall. I think all the original BellSouth DSLAM's were Alcatel, but I could be wrong. Isn't Alcatel a UK company?

You must work for a wireless company or Centurytel, or Bellsouth or something.

[LateNight]

Telco Geek Alert !


LOL


My brother worked for AT&T Research & Development for years.. does that count