AT&T Hits Rewind on the Cingular Name

As if the whole AT&T / Cingular takeover, re-takeover ordeal wasn't confusing enough, it appears that AT&T has decided that they're going to phase out the name Cingular in favor of good ol fashioned AT&T.

Link: AT&T ending Cingular name on wireless (CNN/Money)

I don't recall how this whole soap opera unfolded. Maybe someone can help fill in the blanks or correct me.

• Cingular Buys AT&T Wireless and to my dismay, I turn on my AT&T phone one day and it says \"Cingular\" on it and it promptly stops working right
• The AT&T Mothership eventually buys Bell South, which owns Cingular
• Now AT&T decides that it costs too much to promote Cingular, so they're phasing out the Cingular name

To make matters even more entertaining, they're making the switch gradual and for some months, they'll brand stuff with both the Cingular and AT&T logos.

Uh, all I can say is "WHATEVER".

I have been with the same cell phone provider since about '96 or so. It is now Cingular -- soon to be AT&T as Sheldon notes -- and this will be the third name of the cell phone provider now known as Cingular.

Does anyone remember what the first name was?

I wasn't even aware that Cingular existed in another name before it was Cingular. I always thought it was spawned by SBC Global as their wireless division.

Here's more on the new AT&T / Cingular brand:
http://www.mobileburn.com/news.jsp?Id=3040

Ugh, they're going to use an ORANGE AT&T Globe!

Is it me or is AT&T a pain? They were my cable carrier about 4 years ago before Comcast bought them. They kept raising their rates (same service, higher rates) so I cancelled my service and got DirecTv, which I love and have had NO problems with.

When AT&T took over Cingular Wireless, I also had problems with them. And now that they bought SBC for land line phone service, they started raising rates without letting me know, but claimed that they let us know. I wish I could switch but there are not a whole lot of alternatives. If I switch DSL providers, it will take a couple of weeks and we can't wait since we work from home. Like I said, I don't like cable so that's not an alternative.

It's been my consistent experience that AT&T constantly raises their prices yet provides pretty paltry customer service.

Cingular was Pac Bell cell service until they changed the name with a merger of other cell services. THEY SUCK!

Now, SBC bought Pac Bell, and ATT, which ran the cable service for a brief time. Can you believe they are bigger and more monopolistic than the original ATT which they were split off from.

Damn Republicans! They did this during the Reagan era. Consolidate and drive prices up. How much money do they need?

QUOTE (mobyfan @ Jan 16 2007, 03:23 PM)

When AT&T took over Cingular Wireless, I also had problems with them..

I had the opposite issue. I was happy with AT&T Wireless until Cingular bought out AT&T Wireless then I could never get a reliable signal anywhere where I needed one. I heard they had some problems merging their infrastructure with that merger. I wonder what happens now that they re-unmerged mergered.

Joe, AT&T still has competition. Quite a lot of competition. I don't think Sprint, Verizon, T-Mobile, or any of the small sub-providers existed back when to the old AT&T.

you still can't get ATT in Los Gatos and you can't get verizon/gte in San Jose. You still have to pay a premium to use the lines we paid for to get anyone's DSL. VOIP is not equal to a land line in my opinion. And they charge us for everything: installation and repair.

The old ATT didn't have any cell service before the breakup. All the cell providers were avail, maybe under different names. The only new choice we have had in the last thirty years was to get cable internet service so we could dump the phone company all together.

Now the cable company is ripping us off. Who would envisioned every house paying $100/mo when the city made its MONOPOLY agreement with Comcast and its predecessors? Do you know the city only gets SIX cents per household on each account. That is rediculous. And my last notice is that the cable company is making money hand over fist. I can't wait to use WIFI so I can dump the cable company.