Cingular, the largest US mobile operator, is living its last days
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The orange blob man has a fistful of days to live. Cingular is about to change. Drastically. AT&T is in the verge of acquiring BellSouth, reuniting the two entities separated by a US federal decision, and kill the brand.
For the record, Cingular Wireless is the largest US domestic mobile phone carriers in terms of total customers. According the Ad Age (via Gizmodo), around $4 billion were spent in making the brand what it is today.
But, as recorded in Wikipedia:
“On November 20, 2005, Ed Whitacre, CEO of the newly-merged SBC/AT&T, announced plans to market the service under the AT&T banner. BellSouth spokesman Jeff Battcher countered that the terms of the joint venture allow either party to sell the service under another name, and that he believes they will be using the brand to market to business customers. Cingular president Stan Sigman concurred with BellSouth’s position, indicating that the Cingular brand would continue but be sold under the AT&T brand where offered in packages with other AT&T services, such as data and wireline telephony.”
“However, AT&T, Inc. announced on March 5, 2006 that it would be acquiring BellSouth’s telephone and wireless operations. A revival of the AT&T Wireless brand has been confirmed as Bellsouth’s 40% ownership of Cingular Wireless will be transferred to AT&T. In 2005, Cingular’s revenue was 1/3 of the overall revenue of AT&T and BellSouth.”
AT&T has hinted to use the Cingular network to roll out a dual-mode VoIP over WiFi/cellular service. VoIP is the missing slot of its Project Lightspeed future plan. Up to now, only broadband access and broadband TV were available.
May 15, 2006 | By Nuno
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Cingular is experiencing a total outage in the SW Florida area which began about 2:30 PM today, May 15th, and they say will last another 24 hours.
Reason for the outage is not given!
Barry, did you finally get an explanation?