Throwback Thursday: AT&T Wireless

By on May 12, 2011 at 5:33 PM
General May 12, 2011

As you can see from the above image, the destruction and slow reconstruction of AT&T is quite a story. With the T-Mobile merger currently being debated by Congress, potentially adding another chapter to the saga, we thought it might be a good idea to look at the genesis of AT&T Mobility as it stands today. It all started back in 2001 with AT&T Wireless…

AT&T got its start in wireless communications when it purchased the Washington-based company McCaw Cellular in 1994. With a subscriber base just north of 2 million users, AT&T had officially thrown its hat into the cellular arena. The company continued to grow and collect end-users, and in 1997 — with current Sprint CEO Dan Hesse as its chairman and CEO — AT&T became the U.S.’s largest cellular provider. In 2000, the company was jettisoned from the main AT&T brand and in 2001 it turned into a separately traded company on the New York Stock Exchange; known as AT&T Wireless.

In 2004, with customer subscriptions declining, the company began to accept bids for an acquisition. U.S.-based wireless provider Cingular — a venture of BellSouth and SBC Communications — agreed to purchase the company for $41 billion. Cingular, through the acquisition, ousted Verizon Wireless, a joint venture between Verizon Communications and Vodafone, as the largest cellular provider in the States.

Fast forward to late 2005 and early 2006: SBC Communications purchases AT&T Corp. and begins to market itself under the AT&T brand; the new AT&T announces that it will acquire the phone operations of BellSouth and its stake in AT&T Wireless; and a new company is born. In 2007, after a three-year hiatus, an AT&T-branded wireless company returned with the christening of AT&T Mobility.

Were the AT&T and T-Mobile merger to go through, the company would again — for the third time — become the country’s largest wireless provider through the use of its checkbook. And the vicious cycle continues.

BGR’s Throwback Thursday is a weekly series covering our (and your) favorite gadgets, games, and software of yesterday and yesteryear.

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41 Comments

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  • Anonymous

    And History will repeat itself once again.

    • Adept

       The author needs to check his facts and dates. The history is incorrect and a the article incomplete.

  • Guest

    Funny the checkbook made vzw the nations largest a couple years back

  • http://www.brandongoodman.com/ Brandon Goodman

    Why would you start the article with “It all started back in 2001 with AT&T Wireless…” then in the very next sentence you start in 1994? Meanwhile, the flowchart/family-tree image at the top indicates that things actually start in 1984!

    • half-a-hero

      they are talking about wireless service starting in 2001..!

    • Adept

       Also – I agree with @brandon. In addition author why aren’t you now showing the COMCAST and TIME Warner? Each of these company’s are firmly into the telecommunications arena as well – owning spectrum and providing services. In addition, where is the scariest company of all on the chart? Google? Not only do they own part of Clearwire, but also are a MVNO by virtue of Google phone. They can even port your number now. For a company with a vague privacy policy, I scares me that they have access to all that data and somehow are not federally regulated like like the other telecommunication company’s.

  • http://twitter.com/endlessct9a John C.

    Wasn’t LA Cellular big enough to belong on this chart? What about AirTouch?

    • http://www.brandongoodman.com/ Brandon Goodman

      look closer. Airtouch/Vodafone is on there as a Verizon parent.

    • Drew

      Ahh AirTouch… Those were good times. Paying $75 for 250 minutes and NO TEXT (this was 1995 for me), email or data.

    • http://twitter.com/endlessct9a John C.

      Right right… see it now. Thanks for the heads up. Still don’t see LA Cellular though…

    • Anonymous

       The picture dosent really even apply to this.  The image is the break up of ATT and how it has gone from 8 back to 3.

    • CMC

      There was also a Houston Cellular about as big as LA Cellular.  Both of which were jointly owned by the then (RIP) BellSouth and the original AT&T.

  • Drew

    So, as I see this… the Anti-Christ was reborn in 2005, correct??

  • http://twitter.com/WillieFDiazSF William Diaz ✔

    The issue with AT&T is that it never really broke up, Ameritech, Pacific/Nevada Bell (Pacific Telesis), Bell South, Southwestern Bell (SBC) and “AT&T” have all been extremely close, and none of them have competed against each other directly since 1984. In the eyes of many public figures (myself included) AT&T never broke up, only changed names and changed money from one hand to another over the last 25+ years. Acquiring T-Mobile is only a big deal because both AT&T and Verizon not only own and operate their own landline monopolies in many national market areas as well as many rural areas where no other telecom is offered, but they also are in many cases the dominant television provider, and the dominant if not the ONLY wireless phone provider. If AT&T wants T-Mobile, then AT&T should be required to spin-off T-Mobile either as a separate “brand” like it currently is under Deutsche Telekom as parent but allow it to run itself and govern itself, or spin-off AT&T Mobility and T-Mobile under one brand name of either AT&T Mobile (mobility) or T-Mobile and that brand will run itself separate from AT&T itself, much like AT&T Wireless “attempted” to do.

    For many of us with Sprint, and T-Mobile (or either or) we do not want to see this company reform and dictate rates, broadband services, and claim they are competitive only against the only other largest company that SURPRISE is also a spin-off of AT&T 1984 – Verizon aka Cellco Partners.

    While I understand why T-Mobile (Deutsche Telekom) wants to be part of AT&T and compete against Verizon and its partner Vodafone, I dont think having a duopoly of the two largest most incompetitive American companies pinned with two of Europes most incompetitive duopolies is going to actually increase competition except to drive MetroPCS, Leap Wireless, US Cellular Co and Sprint against each other, and naturally acquisitions will come from that, which in turn will drive Verizon to buy those, leaving a true duopoly of two now extremely strong networks with more than enough spectrum to deliver everything the government is asking each company to do on its own. Frankly Capitalism is great and all but not so great when the consumer ends up having ZERO say in their choice over their needs, and no say in how large these companies are allowed to get. IF they cant even handle the customer counts, data usage, and spectrum they have currently, why would we be fooled into thinking adding more people and 1/2 the spectrum is going to all of a sudden make a difference.
    AT&T made a bad choice not competing with other companies for AWS, and launching an inferior 3G and 4G network on a legacy 2G spectrum offering of 850 and 1900. Verizon only got away with it because that same spectrum is double and quadrupled over EVDO A and EVDO B…. Made sense. But ultimately by 2013-2014 we will see Verizon going after Sprint for their legacy 850 and 1900 spectrum too.

    • bigbudha

       sprint is also ilec. 

      • The Gr8 Gonzo

        Not anymore.  Sprint sold off all local telco holdings (Embarq) after the Nextel merger. 

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/John-Alexander-Thacker/597252629 John Alexander Thacker

      Yes, the local Bells didn’t really compete against each other.  But separating long distance from local was big back in the day.  Also, AT&T spinning off Western Electric, and everyone being allowed to *own their own phone* (and buy phones made by other manufacturers) instead of having to lease phones from Ma Bell was big.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1444788094 Johann Lee

    one problem though, your story implies that AT&T bought out SBC which is not the case. SBC bought out AT&T and took on the name AT&T because it was more valuable than SBC.

  • Anonymous

    This confirms everything I’ve always maintained: Cingular was always AT&T; AT&T will forever be Cingular.

    Good luck with Cingular, T-Mobile subscribers O_o

    Props’ on the graphic, great job!

  • Anonymous

    Map needs an update for CenturyLink/Qwest transaction

  • Anonymous

     Deregulation of any public service is always a fraud. 

    • http://twitter.com/tn678 Tony

      The problem we have isn’t that it’s not regulated enough. It’s that we have corrupt assholes who are supposed to be enforcing the regulations we already have. The FCC just approved Comcast/NBC merger, and one of the people who voted for it is now going to work for Comcast. They aren’t even trying to hide being corrupt.

      • Anonymous

        Tony, I’m sorry.  That argument makes me really sick.

        It’s called deregulation because it is exactly that: de-regulated.

        The argument you’re spewing is exactly the logic that was used to get us to accept it in the first place.  There is no such thing as an regulated de-regulation.

        The c*cksmokers who came up with the idea of de-regulation are laughing at us all.

      • http://twitter.com/tn678 Tony

         I’m not making an “argument.” I’m agreeing with you for the most part. You can’t act like corruption isn’t a contributing factor.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/John-Alexander-Thacker/597252629 John Alexander Thacker

      OK, but don’t forget that the old monopoly AT&T that you’re complaining about was heavily regulated– as are all the franchise holding cable companies, since having a franchise is a form of regulation.

      The Baby Bells themselves stayed heavily regulated when created, because they were all local monopolies.  It’s not like they competed against each other; each stayed in their own little territory.  The whole point of the breakup wasn’t the number of Baby Bells created, it was separating long distance from local phone calls, and it was allowing people to own their own equipment (including phones) that hooked into the Public Switched Telephone Network instead of being forced to lease it from AT&T/Western Electric.

      Looking at it in the context of wireless is confusing, since wireless didn’t really exist at the time AT&T was broken up.

  • S Pierce

    Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it…

  • petey

    qwest is not centurylink

    • asuengineer

      qwest is becoming centurylink

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Vijay-Reddy/100001174567133 Vijay Reddy

     AT&T is like  villain in “Terminator 2  - Judgement day”, how many times you try to destruct, again form together like demon……

    Only solution is kill AT&T.

  • http://www.facebook.com/matt.mingkee Matt Tsui

    Evil Empire is reforming?

  • Anonymous

     ”Magenta, you will be Borg. For 39 billioooon dollllllllars.”

    • Senor Chang

      Resistance is futile. 

      • http://www.facebook.com/matt.mingkee Matt Tsui

         We will see few more Tim McVeigh in the future.

      • Anonymous

         Where’s the Rebels at?

  • Senor Chang

     Finally someone maps this out… I have been sounding like some nutjob conspiracy theorist when I try to explain this to people in the past.

    Look at the map again… of the 8 companies At&t split into, they have absorbed half of them back into At&t.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/John-Alexander-Thacker/597252629 John Alexander Thacker

      Well, only if you ignore Western Electric and Bell Labs (now part of Alcatel-Lucent.)

      Those were more significant because those were the hardware companies that AT&T also used for their monopoly.  People these days don’t realize that back in the day AT&T wouldn’t even let you own your own telephone that they sold (much less let you buy an independent phone and hook it up to the network), but forced you to lease their phones.

  • Ty Carlson

     This is a terribly written article! 

    • Anonymous

      Munchbach should include a wiki link. But by now, you’ll probably has all gone there. 

  • Wireless Hero

     You forgot Alltel with Verizon

  • formerATT

    It’s unfortunate for customers as well as employees of both T-Mobile and AT&T. Customers who are used to better service and prices with T-Mobile will soon be treated as second-class citizens. Employees with both companies will be met with the unfortunate challenge of dealing with potential job loss. Those who believe that AT&T will spare their own kind and clean house with T-Mobile employees are completely mistaken. I’m a product of AT&T’s recent power hunger, having lost my job with them after seven years of hard work, dedication, and celebrated performance. My thoughts go out to those who have recently been or are about to be mistreated or laid off because of this most recent move of corporate greed.

  • http://twitter.com/YBrammer Will Bramlett

     So happy you guys remembered it was Cingular that bought AT&T Wireless and then SBC who bought AT&T. So many people get this wrong and it drives me crazy.

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