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AT&T reaches deal to buy BellSouth

barakat

By barakat
in Nashville

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smeagolsfree Gigalopolis

smeagolsfree

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More importantly will this lead to job loss or expansion for the Nashville based Bell South operations.

I was wondering the same thing about the name change for the tower. I would say the name will change but it will still be known as the Bat Building. Who knows the building may be put on the block to be sold.

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Lexy Town

Lexy

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More importantly will this lead to job loss or expansion for the Nashville based Bell South operations.

I was wondering the same thing about the name change for the tower. I would say the name will change but it will still be known as the Bat Building. Who knows the building may be put on the block to be sold.

They could, theoretically, keep the name Bellsouth and just operate it as a seperate division of AT&T. That is also a possibility.

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monsoon Gigalopolis

monsoon

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The name BellSouth is not a very old one. When they originally broke up Ma Bell in the early 80s. BellSouth was formed by smashing together Southern Bell (HQ'd in Atlanta) and South Central Bell (HQ'd in Nashville). Now that AT&T is back in control again, they may very well get rid of the BellSouth name. Ironically BellSouth is the only Baby Bell to retain the old logo which is the blue bell outline. The court ordered AT&T not to use it anymore.

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jice Burg

jice

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I thought it was interesting that they apparently jointly own Cingular (I didn't know this)... and are going to be phasing the name out for 'AT&T Wireless'. It'll be interesting to see what happens to the BellSouth name... I'm guessing it will go bye bye. As for the logo... i'm sure they will find a way to 'phase' it back in lol. Who knows about the building in Nashville... I like Lexy's idea though lol.

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teshadoh Burg

teshadoh

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Cingular was a joint venture between Southwest Bell (now AT&T) & Bell South.

BellSouth / Southern Bell's legacy will be a very important one for Atlanta, but eventually will be forgotten. I hate it, but this has been expected for years as BellSouth has been making bad business decisions & not expanding where they should be expanding. But as the breakup of AT&T was due to a monopolization of phone service, this is more of a last stand for traditional phone service providers.

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GaTechGuy Whistle-Stop

GaTechGuy

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Who knows the building may be put on the block to be sold.

I don't think Bellsouth owns the building I think they just rent out of it and paid to have their name on it. I don't know that for sure but that would be my guess. I don't think Nashville has much to worry about because most of the jobs there have to do with the local operations of Bellsouth. Atlanta is the one that will probably be hurt the most because they are the headquarters for Bellsouth.

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teshadoh Burg

teshadoh

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^ Propable, but not every service is produced in Atlanta - or in other words, the Nashville office might not JUST be for that region's management of BellSouth. Just as - for example - Bank of America - splits a number of their divisions across the nation, I would assume BellSouth does the same.

I'm not saying Nashville will get layoffs, I'm just suggesting if there is any regional service that a Nashville office is responsible for - it could be cut. But we are also talking about 10,000 over 3 years, which for BellSouth is nothing - they alone would cut 10,000 at the bat of an eye every year for the past years.

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bruceman Whistle-Stop

bruceman

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Just watched a news video on the Chanel 2 News websight and Marty Dickens (TN BellSouth CEO) stated that like we all suspected that the BellSouth sign on the top of the building will change to AT&T :wacko: . I think that they should place the AT&T sign back where the SouthCentral Bell sign used to be so it will fill in the gap under the telecomunications dish. I think that the AT&T logo is blue like BellSouth??? Anyways, with Signature Tower going up soon I'm not too concerned with our current tallest being altered slightly.

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jice Burg

jice

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An article from the Tennessean today is saying that jobs are already moving from their downtown HQ to a Brentwood office. Looks as if there will be some space in the downtown landmark after all.

http://tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/articl...86/0/BUSINESS09

Wow... looks like Lexy nailed it... more than 11 floors going to Nissan. Too bad its only temporary :(

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sleepy Burg

sleepy

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The name BellSouth is not a very old one. When they originally broke up Ma Bell in the early 80s. BellSouth was formed by smashing together Southern Bell (HQ'd in Atlanta) and South Central Bell (HQ'd in Nashville). Now that AT&T is back in control again, they may very well get rid of the BellSouth name. Ironically BellSouth is the only Baby Bell to retain the old logo which is the blue bell outline. The court ordered AT&T not to use it anymore.

Glad to notice you remember the old Southern Bell. As far as I recall, Southern Bell predated SouthCentral Bell.

Anyway the old joke in New Orleans about Southern Bell's service--Their motto? "Frankly, we don't give a damn." :lol:

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rocky top buzz Hamlet

rocky top buzz

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So AT&T wireless get's purchased by Cingular/BellSouth, Now Cingular/BellSouth becoes AT&T! I never completelyunderstood why AT&T was getting out of the fastest growing telecom segment (mobile) anyway, but looks like now they'll get it back.

Good thing Cingular and not Verizon were the ones who purchased AT&T wireless.

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jice Burg

jice

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It's all just naming... AT&T never really got out of the wireless business (apparently... I didn't realize til I read the article). They and BellSouth just jointly owned Cingular and kinda hid the AT&T half of the company behind the Cingular name. Now they bought out the rest of Cingular and are changing the name... again. I'm sure if Verizon Wireless were interested in AT&T wireless before the merger... it would have suddenly become not for sale. It seems to me like this has all been one big well-thought-out plan.

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ATLBrain Burg

ATLBrain

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Oh my... I hope I don't screw this up too badly. But I believe Southwest Bell actually bought ATT a short time ago (within the last year or so). ATT in fact had it's long distance and wireless divisions (I think they even considered a spinoff of their wireless about 5 years ago)... Anyway, after the SWB/ATT merger, they dropped the Southwest Bell name and became the "new" ATT.

SWB and Bellsouth have been partners in Cingular since Cingular started (8-10 years ago?). So that part was always a stand-alone (joint venture)... I think.

Please, please someone check me on this. I know I've got some of the history right. Sorry that I don't have the time for true research on this one.

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monsoon Gigalopolis

monsoon

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Yes, this is really a merger of local phone companies. After the original breakup, AT&T screwed up its fledging computer business, got a bloody nose from its hostile takeover of NCR then destroyed that company which it sold for a loss, then sold off its Bell Labs & Western Electric assets, and was finally left with just long distance and AT&T wireless. And now that long distance is practically free SBC came in and took them over mainly to get the wireless customers which were sent to Cingular in most places.

Honestly the only reason the local Bell companies have not failed as well as they have been better in the court system in keeping away competitors from their monopoly business. Nothing innovative has come from any of them since the breakup.

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