What's In A Name?
from the a-bell-by-any-other-name... dept
As rumored, SBC says it will take AT&T's name once its buyout is complete. This sort of brings things full circle, as SBC used to be Southwestern Bell, one of the Baby Bells forced to spin out of AT&T in 1984 following antitrust rulings. It's SBC that's emerged as the stronger company, though, with AT&T's long-distance business decimated by competition. One of AT&T's attempts to fight back -- its CallVantage VoIP offering, which was designed to take some business back from the Baby Bells -- is in a curious place. While SBC's got VoIP on its radar (somewhere), it wouldn't be that surprising to see them view it a little less favorably and act accordingly. Or, conversely, it could become the cornerstone of their own VoIP offering, bundled with DSL. But given SBC's resistance to naked DSL, that doesn't seem very likely.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
so?
Ha! They have been and will still remain a crap local phone service.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]