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The name change shuffle

Marguerite Reardon Former senior reporter
Marguerite Reardon started as a CNET News reporter in 2004, covering cellphone services, broadband, citywide Wi-Fi, the Net neutrality debate and the consolidation of the phone companies.
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Marguerite Reardon
2 min read

I don't know about everyone else, but merger mania is giving me a headache trying to keep up with all the name changes. I feel like I'm listening to a telecom version of that old Abbott and Costello joke "Who's on first?".

SBC Communications, which officially changed its name to AT&T on Friday, is the biggest offender, in my opinion. First of all, SBC, which used to be a part of AT&T before the 1984 break-up of Ma Bell, actually bought AT&T for a whopping $16.9 billion. Typical naming convention would mean that the new company would still be called SBC Communications. Right?

But the company says the 100 year-old brand of AT&T is too good to just let die. I have to admit the marketing folks have a good point here.

But now, Ed Whitacre, the old SBC CEO (and the new AT&T CEO), said in a USA Today article published on Monday that the new AT&T plans to re-brand the wireless service it resells from Cingular Wireless and also call it AT&T. AT&T owns 60 percent of Cingular.

Now, this is where my head starts to hurt. I just got used to calling the old AT&T Wireless service, which Cingular bought last year for $41 billion, Cingular. And now AT&T, which is the old SBC, wants to bring back the old name, but only in certain markets? Huh?

So what does BellSouth, which owns the other 40 percent of Cingular, think of this? Jeff Battcher, a spokesman for the company, said it's not a big deal. From the time the joint venture was formed several years ago, the parent companies had the right to re-brand the service if they resold it to their customers. But up to this point, neither company had exercised this right. At least for now BellSouth says it will continue to use the Cingular name.

"Millions of dollars have already been spent advertising Cingular as a nationwide brand," Batcher said. "We've found in our region that the BellSouth name combined with Cingular's brand means a great deal to our customers."