Cingular and AT&T Merger. Is this true?

[tbonecopper]

I have heard from various resources that Cingular and AT&T are considering merging. I posted a thread like this in the AT&T forum. If anyone knows about this please post. Thanks.

[I have a phone]

yes, the announcement will be tomorrow.


the union of AWS and Cingular will spawn a whole new ideal:

Realfriggingbigwirelessprovider

[Barry ATL]

Originally posted by I have a phone
yes, the announcement will be tomorrow.


the union of AWS and Cingular will spawn a whole new ideal:

Realfriggingbigwirelessprovider

You are soooo bad!

[I have a phone]

Originally posted by Barry ATL
You are soooo bad!

[ASKJAX]

Nah...............they would never ever announce a merger on Friday.
Especially Black Friday.

Maybe Merger Monday.............MMM

If it were true Cingular just needs to sit back and wait for AWE earnings. I think their going to miss big. Also I think they(AWE)
will have flat to negative subscriber adds. Its hard to catch up when you could not activate phones for 2-3 weeks.

Cingular should be able to pay closer to 12-15 Bill rather then the 20-22 Bill market cap AWE currently trades at.

[100thMonkey]

[bobolito]

You guys are spoling innocent lives hungry for knowledge...

But to be honest, no, AT&T and Cingular are NOT merging. God forbid! Instead, however, Cingular is buying AT&T Wireless.

Two different things!
If they merged, and God forbid AT&T Wireless was the controlling company, I'll resign to GSM forever! I rather have Sprint!

[Barry ATL]

Cingular buying AT&T? Wouldn't that be nifty. Look out Verizon Wireless. Can you hear US now?

[wierdo]

Looks to me that in terms of 800MHz licenses, a Cingular and AT&T combination would be no better than what VZW has now. Needless to say, a VZW and Alltel merger would give them 800MHz licenses in all but a very few market areas. They would not in S. Florida, obviously, unless of course they were sold an 800MHz license as part of an AT&T/Cingular merger. The same goes for the Dallas/FW CMA.

If not for the massive expense in retooling a CDMA network for GSM, I would say a Cingular/Alltel merger would make more strategic sense, in that it wouldn't force a sale of 800MHz spectrum to Verizon in any large markets. Of course, they wouldn't gain 800MHz spectrum in CA/OR/WA, either, so the upside is potentially smaller. They would get spectrum in most of AZ, though, where they currently have none at all.

[bobolito]

Strategic sense? Did you forget that Alltel is CDMA and Cingular would have to convert all that to GSM? What kind of strategy is that?

[Barry ATL]

Under the new FCC rules with no cap on owned bandwidth in the top 100 markets, I do not think Cingular would be required to sell a system if they ended up with both the a and b carriers in a maket. Now, the Justice Dept. is another matter.

Are there any makets where Cingular and AT&T hold the 850mhz licenses?

[JohnnyK]

Yes, most notably in spots in Florida and Texas

[WeneedJapPhones]

Whoever comes in control, you can bet that customers will have the best GSM/GPRS/EDGE handsets from Samsung, LG, AT&T's partners, NEC & Panasonic, etc. and you can bet that A LOT of handset manufacturers who abandoned the U.S. market, like Mitsubishi, Sharp, etc. will re-enter the market with top-notch products, to get a piece of the action, and that will result in SUPER-QUALITY handsets at lower prices.

[IIDX]

That would be a great hope anyway. I'm still waiting for some improved plans from Cingular, let alone new handsets, though the panasonic flips are fantastic from whta i see. But alot of ATT stuff, Cingular has as well, b ut there are some +'s.

[markrogo]

The bogus joke of anti-trust enforcement in the current administration does mean that a Cingular / AT&T combo would get some scrutiny and to "prove" their mettle, DOJ would probably make them drop a small handful of licenses where they have too much market share -- not spectrum.

But that would be it.

Whoever gets to the altar first, gets married. Only after that marriage does DOJ / FTC / FCC get nervous about marrying these "same-sex couples".

The only financial structure for AT&T to join with Cingular is a "reverse merger" where the privately held Cingular is merged into the publicly traded AT&T Wireless. That creates liquidity for Cingular and would be required in any deal as not even Bell South and SBC can afford to pay cash for AT&T in what would then become a hostile tender.

I do see this as a possible combination, especially given T-Mobile's reluctance to sell to Cingular.

Verizon / Alltel seems inevitable as Verizon will probably not be allowed to buy Sprint PCS.

Mark