 | |
| Fate | Acquired/Defunct |
|---|---|
| Successor | Cingular Wireless LLC |
| Founded | 1994 - as a division of AT&T July 9, 2001 - as a separate company |
| Defunct | October 2004 |
| Location | Redmond, Washington |
| Industry | Wireless Services |
| Products | AMPS, D-AMPS, CDPD GSM, GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, SMS, MMS, mMode |
| Key people | John D. Zeglis |
| Parent | AT&T until July 9, 2001 |
AT&T Wireless Services, Inc., formerly part of AT&T Corp., was a wireless telephone carrier in the United States, based in Redmond, Washington, and later traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the stock symbol "AWE", as a separate entity from its former parent.
On October 26 2004, AT&T Wireless completed a merger with Cingular Wireless, a joint venture of SBC Communications and BellSouth, to become the largest wireless carrier in the United States. Under the agreement, only the Cingular brand name would remain. On 2004-11-16, AT&T Wireless stores were rechristened under the Cingular banner. The legal entity AT&T Wireless Services, Inc. was renamed New Cingular Wireless Services, Inc.[1]
In late 2005, SBC (the majority partner in Cingular) acquired the original AT&T, and rebranded as "the new AT&T". Cingular became wholly-owned by the new AT&T in December 2006 as a result of the new AT&T's acquisition of BellSouth. The speculation that AT&T's name would again be used to market cellular services was being realized, as Cingular was renamed AT&T Mobility in early 2007.
Contents
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History
AT&T Wireless began as McCaw Cellular, and was based in Redmond, WA, United States. It was founded by Craig McCaw.
In 1994, AT&T purchased McCaw for $11.5 billion and kick-started their cellular division with 2 million subscribers.[2][3] That year, Steven W. Hooper, a long time McCaw Cellular executive, was tapped by AT&T to be the CEO of the newly acquired division. Under his direction, AT&T Wireless grew to be the nation's largest cellular provider by the end of 1997, at which point Hooper and many of the remaining McCaw era executives departed. By 1999 and 2000 the cellular industry began to consolidate and Verizon Wireless and Cingular Wireless became the first and second largest national carriers.
The year 1999 also brought John D. Zeglis as chief executive in October, followed a few months later by Dan Hesse's departure, who had been head of the division since 1997. Over the next year and a half all six McCaw regional presidents left the company.
In April 2000, AT&T Wireless became a separately traded entity with the world's largest initial public offering at that time. Followed, just over a year later in July 2001, by AT&T Wireless became a separate company rather than a division of AT&T Corp.
As of January 1 2004, the largest single shareholder of AT&T Wireless was Japan's NTT DoCoMo.
AT&T Wireless was the third largest wireless telephone carrier in the United States before merging with Cingular in October 2004.
Acquisition history
On February 13 2004, AT&T Wireless accepted bids for acquisition of the wireless company. The two top bidders were British carrier Vodafone and American competitor Cingular. Cingular was owned by two Baby Bells; 40% by BellSouth and 60% by SBC Communications, Inc. SBC would later acquire AT&T Corp. in 2006 and adopt the latter's name, becoming AT&T Inc. Vodafone owns 45% of Verizon Wireless and had it succeeded in the bid, their share of Verizon Wireless would then have been sold to parent company Verizon Communications. Cingular emerged victorious February 17 by agreeing to pay more than $41 billion, more than twice the company's recent trading value, to acquire AT&T Wireless. Some analysts have said that although Vodafone, the world's largest mobile operator, was unsuccessful in acquiring the company, it was nonetheless successful in forcing a competitor to overpay for the acquisition of AT&T Wireless.
The sale received US government approval and closed on October 26, creating the nation's largest wireless carrier, overtaking Verizon Wireless. The AT&T Wireless brand was retired by Cingular on April 26 2005, six months after the close of the merger. This was per a pre spin-off agreement with AT&T Corp. that stated that if AT&T Wireless was to be bought by a competitor, the rights to the name AT&T Wireless and the use of the AT&T name in wireless phone service would revert back to AT&T Corp.
As of August 2007, AT&T Mobility (the newly renamed entity created by the Oct 2004 merger of AT&T Wireless and Cingular Wireless) is planning to buy Dobson Communications d/b/a Cellular One. It is reported that AT&T Mobility will buy Dobson for $2.8 Billion USD. This will add 1.7 million subscribers to AT&T's already large customer base.
Partnerships
Rogers AT&T Wireless was a publicly traded partnership between Rogers and AT&T. It operated a mobile network in Canada until Rogers bought out AT&T's stake in 2004 and took the company private. See Rogers Wireless.
SunCom Wireless was a brand name used by three separate companies: Telecorp PCS, Tritel PCS, and Triton PCS (based in Arlington, VA, Jackson, MS, and Berwyn, PA, respectively). All three used the same SunCom logo, but operated as completely independent companies, though all were affiliates of AT&T Wireless, which owned 23% of each company. Telecorp operated primarily in Wisconsin, Iowa, Louisiana, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Puerto Rico. Tritel operated primarily in Mississippi, Kentucky, Alabama, and Tennessee. Triton operated primarily in North and South Carolina and Virginia. In 2002, Telecorp and Tritel completed a merger, while Triton remained independent. In 2003, AT&T Wireless completed the acquisition of Telecorp/Tritel, and closed the Telecorp headquarters in Arlington, VA.
Cincinnati Bell Wireless started as a joint venture between Cincinnati Bell and AT&T Wireless, in which AT&T Wireless owned 20%. When AT&T Wireless was purchased by Cingular, control of the 20% passed to Cingular as well. On 2006-02-17, Cincinnati Bell took full control of Cincinnati Bell Wireless by purchasing Cingular's 20% ownership for $80 million.
AT&T Mobility
On November 18 2005, SBC Communications, Inc. completed a merger with AT&T Corp., and took the name AT&T Inc. AT&T later announced it planned on reselling Cingular services under the AT&T name, in "bundled" packages. This worried BellSouth, as AT&T planned on selling these bundled services in competition with BellSouth. However, in a somewhat ironic turn of events, AT&T Inc. announced on March 5 2006[4] that it would be acquiring BellSouth's telephone and wireless operations. On December 29 2006 the FCC gave its final approval to the AT&T and BellSouth merger. This merger consolidated Cingular's entire ownership (originally split between SBC and BellSouth) under AT&T ownership. Cingular was rebranded "Cingular Wireless, now the new AT&T" early in 2007 and then by June 2007 the "Cingular" brand was dropped in favor of just the iconic "AT&T" brand; however, in some cases the name was branded as "AT&T, formerly Cingular".[5]
The current AT&T stores will sell all AT&T products and services: Wireless, Landline, Internet, U-Verse, and more. AT&T will have all services under one brand (although the name of the legal entity is "AT&T Mobility"). This might lead to confusion on the customers behalf in the fact that there would be no name difference between AT&T's wireless telephone service and the other services that they offer.
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