Cingular to take on AT&T name as buyout approved
It seems like the FCC is kind of going approval happy lately, doesn't it? Keeping with the current motif, the FCC approved AT&T's acquisition of BellSouth on Friday, bringing AT&T's ownership of the Cingular brand name name to 100 percent ownership. With a commitment by AT&T to re-brand Cingular, we wonder what's going to happen to the orange splat, Jack? Can we suggest a... building the tension... blue splat?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
theburn16 @ Jan 2nd 2007 1:30AM
1 rumor that at one time was going around the corporate stores and meetings was that the head of Jack would be the AT&T globe...but i seriously doubt it. it'll only be the globe more than likely
scott lampman @ Jan 2nd 2007 3:20AM
So now will my Cingular phones not work on the new ATT network, since I've finally "upgraded" my plans from the old ATT stuff that wouldn't work on the new Cingular network?
Anti-competitive anti-consumer BS, the lot of it. But one day, we'll all be customers of the one company that delivers us all products and services. SCI-FI is now! Yay!
paolo @ Jan 2nd 2007 3:29AM
people its just a name change its not going to affect how your phone works on the network.
Ezra @ Jan 2nd 2007 3:33AM
I for one would hate to see Jack go... such an attractive guy and a unique color... please tell me there will be no more mMode
Brett @ Jan 2nd 2007 6:56AM
i really find it funny how much cingy is spending just on advertising. they spend a...what was it...4 billion? 6 billion? on ads to change to cingy now they are going to have to reverse it to go back to old blue...but it will be NEW blue! i cant see it going over well with old time customers. also the orange tends to appeal to the younger croud especially with the stores set up the way they are. the blue globe is definately not as appealing or as eye catching.
so things they have to spend money on to change to new blue..
1. the stores
2. the commercials
3. the network/software
4. promotions of changing to new blue
5. saving the customers.
good luck to ya at&t! youre gonna need it.
R.I.P. Jack
Chris @ Jan 2nd 2007 7:15AM
AT&T should rebrand business services under AT&T and keep personal services under Cingular.
Charles @ Jan 2nd 2007 9:08AM
at&t will be co branded til about q3/ a4....at&t cingular.. im working on the team thats "rebranding" to at&t cingular.
jack and the globe will be on the commercials til cingular is slowly phased out. the head of jack is not the globe. :)
remember people...just the name is changing..not the network, not the plans, not anything but the name. stores will not lose their orange color til about q3
Jonathan @ Jan 2nd 2007 10:21AM
And no offense Charles, but the move away from the Cingular brand is just NOT a good idea for personal services. Chris has it right. AT&T just isn't a "personal" company, it's seen as a corporate stuffed shirt and no amount of advertising is going to change that perception.
To take the AT&T name entirely is to embrace all the good and the bad decisions (mostly the bad), the traditions and all the crazy baggage AT&T has accumulated over the years. You'll have folks across each department saying "We're AT&T now we have to do this the AT&T way". And that way frankly is not going to work in the new century. All I can say is, good luck... you will need it. Nice cushy job tho, you're probably not going anywhere for a while ;D
zargon @ Jan 2nd 2007 12:22PM
I was excited to hear that AT&T was going to be obtaining Cingular when I first heard about it. AT&T was by the best cellular service in the Twin Cities when it was AT&T. The switch over to what I like to call Crapular was anything but pleasant.
As soon as the switch happened during that faithful October, the service went to hell in a hand basket for both my girlfriend at the time and me. We could no longer get service in our apartment, which before we had full strength. Dropped calls left and right and just over all horrible reception. Customer service couldn't do anything, nor did I get the feel that they even cared, like they were just reading off a bland script. Claiming nothing has changed, but as they put it, "a lot of people have been having problems." You'd think if a lot of people were having problems, they would acknowledge it and fix it? Apparently not, they wouldn't even give me a deal to switch over, which I was more than willing to do to try to fix the problem. Something my counter-part had done, and it fixed nothing, but I had high hopes.
Eventually we dropped Crapular like a bad habit for Verizon, which I couldn't be happier with. I was actually able to get service every where, rarely do I get dropped calls and my experience with their customer service has been 10 fold better. They actually are willing to work with you.
I would like to see Cingular go back to the way of AT&T, which what made them such a great service. I remember getting extra minutes or other service getting thrown on when ever I called customer service, and with out asking. I actually got the feeling they wanted to keep me as a customer, much like Verizon has been to me for the past year and some change. If they do, it will make it hard for me to stay with Verizon, but until then...
Bryan @ Jan 2nd 2007 12:26PM
If I was an AT&T shareholder I would be screaming bloody murder about the rebranding of the cingular network. Way to wash all those advertising dollars, not to mention brand equity, down the drain.
b @ Jan 2nd 2007 12:57PM
zargon,
I'm with you 100% on this one. I never had a problem with ATT wireless. Service or customer service. I was on a corporate plan, and because of that position they would always throw me a free phone whenever I wanted. They would give me minutes whenever I called, without my asking. Their plans were simple and fair. They were a pleasant company. Cingular has more of a corporate feel than ATT. Go ahead and try talking to them to get something down. You get the nameless person telling you all the hoops that need to be jumped through. Give me ATT Wireless back.
Frank Black @ Jan 2nd 2007 1:41PM
How about: CINGULAR! An AT&T Company?
I agree. The Orange splat Jack congers up youth, excitement, now and nextgen. The "globe" just feels like taa, taa, taa, ta, tataa, ta, tataaa. Return of the Corporate DeathStar filled with arbiters of missteps and entitlement storm troopers!!!
Marty @ Jan 2nd 2007 2:06PM
Are you people serious? AT&T had the worst... the WORST customer service. And it's not my own personal bad experiences, Consumer Reports had an article years ago showing the number of complaints (both for customer svc and technology complaints) filed to the FCC about each cell company. Take a wild guess about who had the highest... and it wasn't by a margin either. AT&T sucked a$$... and I wasn't afraid to tell them that after they screwed me over a few times.
What I find more disturbing is this: AT&T Wireless gets sold to Cingular (Bellsouth). Bellsouth, a former 'baby bell' of AT&T after the breakup. A few years after that, AT&T in itself 'goes under'... only t be bought out by... Bellsouth (which makes history as the first baby bell to have bought out Ma Bell). And now Cingular is switching back to AT&T wireless. Is it just me, or does everyone else not see what's happened here? That AT&T 'faked' it's own death so that it could merge and re-form bigger than it's been since the break-up? I think we've all been scammed. Either way, I don't care if the new AT&T gives out hand-jobs with every bill, I will never support AT&T out of stubborn principle.
JJackson @ Jan 2nd 2007 5:33PM
Marty you forget that AT&T is actually Southwestern Bell Company (SBC). The purchased what was left of AT&T and then rebranded themselves AT&T... I don't thing the Cingular name should be dumped either though. I know AT&T has more global recognization but I think the cingular logo and name is more catchy and appealing. It's only my opinion though so whatever...
Stuart @ Jan 2nd 2007 5:43PM
I agree with several of the people here as well: switching away from the Cingular brand is a poor business decision IMHO. It seems like a huge amount of money to have essentially wasted to promote the brand, only to have the carpet pulled out from under it as it was becoming a well-known corporate entity. They expended so much effort to get everyone to go orange, and now they're switching back to blue (which I had bad experiences with, but thats another issue).
AT&T already does business telecom products (because I've seen their advertisements), why not keep it as is? I liked Frank Black's idea to bring some unity to the personal and business facets of the company. Unless there's an email address we can spam, I'm just gonna start shaking my head when this starts happening.
Donald @ Jan 2nd 2007 8:10PM
To zargon and b (9 and 11): Those extra minutes were bribes to keep you locked into the service before the merger with Cingular.
Don't look at it as them doing you a favour, it was greed on the part of the late AT&T Wireless (RIP).
ZeroOveride427 @ Jan 2nd 2007 9:52PM
Well I just switched (today actually) to T-Mobile. After spending $200 to upgrade from my Blackberry 7290 to the 8700 I started to get dropped calls and low signal. I called Cingular and they said we'll send ya another. Still have the same problem. Now before my 30 return period ended I call up and tell them I no longer want it. The rep tries to state they can send me a third one, and I say no. I want a different phone or my money back. The rep goes and gets a supervisor who states she cannot do anything and she will call me back. 3 weeks goes by with no call back. I call them and get the same line. At that point I said they can go xxxx themselves. I switched to T-Mobile. I am lucky though, I am not under contract with them so I can leave without paying anything extra. I know that Cingular's customer service is the worst and so far T-Mobile has been very pleasant. Ohh and one other messed up thing, I get a corporate discount through the company I work for. Well I went to open a second line and get a new phone. If I went through the special Corporate link through work, which is supposed to be 40% on new devices off the regular website and I gt the price of $229 for the Pearl after $50 mail-in-rebate. And at the same time its only $199 on the regular website. I don't trust them as far as I can throw them and I would advise anyone who can get out to get out now. They're a sinking ship.
bkessler @ Jan 3rd 2007 9:21AM
Okay, so I just changed over from my old AT&T Wireless plan to Cingular. After which point my old Treo 650 no longer works with my new Cingular sim. So now we're flipping back to AT&T. Oy vey...
paolo @ Jan 3rd 2007 1:18PM
to bkessler
are you stupid or something? its just a name change your cingular treo WILL still work. did you read what i posted above? probably not.
Fred @ Jan 5th 2007 10:54AM
There will be NO MIGRATING and the plans will be the same. From what I understand, Orange SIMs/Devices will be interchangeable with NewBlue SIMs/Devices. Don't quote me on that.
But I am certain there will be no Blue/Orange Migrating again. That was too much of a pain and Cingular has admitted (plenty of times) that it was more of a hassle than it was ever worth, but it had to be done because of all the different billing systems that were absorbed when AT&T became Cingular. To get everything running in unison, it had to be done.
Fast forward to 2007 and there are STILL two separate activation systems for Cingular -- CARE and TLG. Even so, it's not that big of a deal and the systems are transparent to the consumer.
But as far as this goes, the only things changing are name and image. It is purely a superficial change. I'm still unclear as to *why* they are doing it, but from what I understand it has to do with people having more faith in the AT&T name than in the Cingular name.
Luke Nelson @ Jan 13th 2007 2:05AM
What I think a lot of people don't realize is that AT&T and AT&T Wireless were two different companies. They used to be one, but they split off.
As well CIngular was owned by both SBC and BellSouth.
So Cingular bought AT&T Wireless, but they didn't buy the name, just the customers and such. Because part of the meger stated that if AT&T Wireless was ever bought by a competiter, the name would revert back to AT&T in 6 months. I used to work for AT&T Wireless at the time of the merger, and once that happened we were told to start calling it the 'New Cingular" and "The Former AT&T Wireless" because in 6 months, the AT&T Wireless name wasn't owned by CIngular.
It wasn't until about 2 years later that SBC bought AT&T, thus getting the AT&T Wireless name back, at that time SBC also changed thier name to AT&T.
Plans were announced as well that AT&T (the former SBC) would start reselling Cingular services under the AT&T name in 'bundled' packages. This worried BellSouth though, as they would be in direct compitition with them.
However AT&T bought BellSouth, it is all named AT&T now, and nothing stands in thier way of calling themselves AT&T.
carlo @ Jan 13th 2007 2:26PM
I don't think bkessler is stupid as noted by paolo, I just think bkessler has had the same concerns that so many people have had who have been pressured to switch services, then found that they had to go online to search for tutorials on how to get x phone to work with y network even though x and y networks both equal z network, as paolo seems to say.
bkessler's (and my) concern is coming from a valid place of uncertainty, which we have already been through once with the company--and a lot of people don't want to have to go there again.
There are most certainly differences between AT&T devices and Cingular devices, e.g. the MPX220. I had to make changes to mine to get it to work that weren't at all intuitive. To some of us, it's fun to tinker but for the majority, it's a hassle especially after paying so much money.
Sunshinechili @ Jan 17th 2007 8:33AM
I am at the end of my contract for Cingular and was planning to switch to a different mobile service. Now I am unsure what to do? Wait and see, if AT&T will help Cingular to catch up with the other wireless companies and give quality services we all deserve. Moving to NC I get alot of Drop calls and that's what they advertise they do less of...hmmmmmmm
I'm all for AT&T let's see what they can do for "us" the customers.
jdelajfari1615 @ Jan 29th 2007 7:22PM
i think if they swich back to at&t it will be kinda boring.....i mean c'mon a globe BORING!!!!!! the cingular splat is more catchey to us young people...