In a shocking turn of events, AT&T lied

[Juan]

Not the same company at all

I'm saying that no comparison is necessary. The current AT&T has been around long enough that its record stands by itself. That you felt a need to insert the old AT&T into the discussion is unfortunate.

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[harshness]

I have worked with and have contacts with employees of both the old and new versions of AT&T. There is a huge difference between the two. The old AT&T was known as Ma Bell and it's employees felt themselves part of a family. It was a great place to work. While the old AT&T was a for profit business they leaned toward customer service as their primary image. The new AT&T, and SBC, in front of that, has a different outlook.

I agree that it was uncalled for that comfortably numb globbed the old AT&T together with the new AT&T (seemingly believing that they were one and the same).

Nevertheless, I'm pretty sure the rest of the free world either knows the difference or only knows the new AT&T. Of course many old American telecom companies that are/were in a similar position have been acquired or died (look at GTE and Stromberg Carlson) but that shouldn't necessarily reflect on those who worked there or ran the show in bygone days.

 

[Juan]

The old att developed the transistor, launched the first satellite, was the original owner of the ABC tv network( divested)... current att is nowhere near the same company

I agree that it was uncalled for that comfortably numb globbed the old AT&T together with the new AT&T (seemingly believing that they were one and the same).

Nevertheless, I'm pretty sure the rest of the free world either knows the difference or only knows the new AT&T. Of course many old American telecom companies that are/were in a similar position have been acquired or died (look at GTE and Stromberg Carlson) but that shouldn't necessarily reflect on those who worked there or ran the show in bygone days.

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[comfortably_numb]

I agree that it was uncalled for that comfortably numb globbed the old AT&T together with the new AT&T (seemingly believing that they were one and the same)

I did believe that and I stand corrected.

 

[ncted]

I think AT&T has been monitoring my Internet posts. I have no Internet connection at my house tonight with no estimate for when it will be back online. Either that or it was the wind storm that came through this morning.

 

[comfortably_numb]

I think AT&T has been monitoring my Internet posts. I have no Internet connection at my house tonight with no estimate for when it will be back online. Either that or it was the wind storm that came through this morning.

Dude, your social credit score just went WAY down!!

 

[Jimbo]

and I agree with Juan!... I worked for Pacific Telephone, a subsidiary of the old AT&T, from 1967 to 1984. I was a member of the Pacific Telephone Headquarters Staff that worked on the transition of Pacific Telephone to Pacific Telesis (Pacific Bell and Nevada Bell.) The old AT&T worked very well except for two issues. First, it was bogged down in traditional telephony, little or slow advancement in switching systems, dialing systems, end user telephone equipment. Yes, with the old AT&T when you ordered telephone service you not only got dial tone you got the inside wiring as well as the telephones. You paid a monthly rate for the telephone service of your choice, private party, multi party, as well as $1 a month for each extension telephone, a single charge of $5 for a color telephone, $1.25 a month for a Princess telephone, and $1.50 a month for a Trimline telephone. Business systems, key telephone and PBX were a lot more complicated. The second issue and this is what caused the divestiture in the first place was the price of long distance. It could be very expensive to call coast to coast or even across town (especially in a big city.) MCI came up withe a better, cheaper, plan. AT&T tried to squash them and they sued. The end result is divestiture. After I retired from Pacific Bell at the end of 1991 I did contract work, beginning in 1995, with Pacific Bell and that work continued through 2001. In 1997 SBC aquired Pacific Telesis and its companies, Pacific Bell and Nevada Bell. They maintained the old monikers until 2002 when they changed the name to SBC. In 2005 after SBC acquired AT&T the SBC name and logo were changed to AT&T.

I have worked with and have contacts with employees of both the old and new versions of AT&T. There is a huge difference between the two. The old AT&T was known as Ma Bell and it's employees felt themselves part of a family. It was a great place to work. While the old AT&T was a for profit business they leaned toward customer service as their primary image. The new AT&T, and SBC, in front of that, has a different outlook. It's all about the money, the customer doesn't really matter. I believe the new AT&T is evil, the old one less so. Most present day employees that I talk to can't wait to retire. They are not too happy with their employer. It seems that not only does the new AT&T not care about its customers, they don't care about their employees either, very different from the old version.

What started this comparison of the two AT&Ts was a post from comfortably_numb that said "Unchecked and unregulated monopolistic behavior by the one of the oldest, least-accountable telco's in the history of communications. Why am I not shocked?!!" That insertion brought this entire thread to another level...

1 slight correction ...
The old was AT&T
The new is at&t

 

[comfortably_numb]

1 slight correction ...
The old was AT&T
The new is at&t

Does it really matter? Don't they both stand for American Telephone & Telegraph?

 

[Jimbo]

Does it really matter? Don't they both stand for American Telephone & Telegraph?

Thats just how they wanted themselves distinguished when it became at&t again.

 

[Juan]

No...at&t is just a RBOC...AT&T was bell labs, western electric and a boat load of other companies....

Does it really matter? Don't they both stand for American Telephone & Telegraph?

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[Peter Parker]

The old att developed the transistor, launched the first satellite, was the original owner of the ABC tv network( divested)... current att is nowhere near the same company

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Juan I am with you on everything else in this thread but I don't think that AT&T ever owned ABC>

 

[harshness]

1 slight correction ...
The old was AT&T
The new is at&t

That's not what you're going to find in a TESS search of the USPTO database today. The lower case logo was abandoned around 2016 for just the globe.

Subsequently they've added back the AT&T

 

[harshness]

Don't they both stand for American Telephone & Telegraph?

Nope. The post-divestiture version is just AT&T Inc..

 

[Juan]

Kinda...the red and blue networks one became ABC the other NBC..att kept the the broadband ( before satellite) that connected tv and radio stations..it was never called ABC but became ABC
From wikipedia

AT&T, RCA, and their patent allies and partners finally settled their disputes in 1926 by compromise. AT&T decided to focus on the telephone business as a communications common carrier, and sold its broadcasting subsidiary Broadcasting Company of America to RCA. The assets included station WEAF, which for some time had broadcast from AT&T headquarters in New York City. In return, RCA signed a service agreement with AT&T, ensuring any radio network RCA started would have transmission connections provided by AT&T. Both companies agreed to cross-license patents, ending that aspect of the dispute. RCA, GE, and Westinghouse were now free to combine their assets to form the National Broadcasting Company, or NBC network.

Juan I am with you on everything else in this thread but I don't think that AT&T ever owned ABC>

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[ncted]

Well my internet came back on, so I guess my punishment is over.


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[harshness]

Kinda...the red and blue networks one became ABC the other NBC..att kept the the broadband ( before satellite) that connected tv and radio stations..it was never called ABC but became ABC

Here's another case of temporal context. The ABC of 1943 was a radio network which has since been consumed by other interests (Disney merged the ABC radio business to Citadel Communications for stock in 2007 and was eventually swallowed up by Cumulus Media). The ABC of today is an entirely different bird from the fallout of NBC Blue.

In the future there will surely be similar discussions of giants like Fox and Sony and it may be even harder to connect the dots.

 

[schneid]

Compared to her spawn, Verizon and SBC (now AT&T), Ma Bell was a saint. As they said back then, "You could hear a pin drop".

 

[harshness]

Compared to her spawn, Verizon and SBC (now AT&T), Ma Bell was a saint.

You can do that when you have an effective monopoly on the marketplace. The divestiture was designed to change that but the consequences may not have been all that well envisioned.

As the pressure of competition increases, so does the temptation to create very carefully worded statements that are likely to be misinterpreted in the larger context.

 

[Juan]

Here's another case of temporal context. The ABC of 1943 was a radio network which has since been consumed by other interests (Disney merged the ABC radio business to Citadel Communications for stock in 2007 and was eventually swallowed up by Cumulus Media). The ABC of today is an entirely different bird from the fallout of NBC Blue.

In the future there will surely be similar discussions of giants like Fox and Sony and it may be even harder to connect the dots.

sorry but there is a direct connection between old radio networks and early tv networks..wcbs,wnbc and wabc all transitioned shows from radio to tv

 

[harshness]

sorry but there is a direct connection between old radio networks and early tv networks..wcbs,wnbc and wabc all transitioned shows from radio to tv

But again you've dragged us back a few dozen years in history (well before today's AT&T was established) and that's not particularly relevant to the topic of the thread. Asserting that a company that is taken over comes with the entirety of its outstanding attributes (or undesirable baggage) isn't sound reasoning.

For those who have lost sight of it, the topic of the thread is that AT&T either mislead regulators about what they were going to do with the content that they acquired as part of their Warner Media acquisition or casually making liars of themselves by doing what they assured that they were not going to do. ABC, Comcast, Disney or NBC have nothing to do with it outside of them being competitors in one form or another.