Ma Bell is Back 511
brass1 writes Ma Bell is back. It seems that for the purposes of branding, SBC is changing its name to AT&T once the acquisition is complete. Meanwhile, a great force and a high pitched whining sound has been reported from Judge Greene's grave as he spins at nearly 10K RPM."
They aren't as dangerous as before (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't care what they call it, it ain't Ma Bell (Score:5, Insightful)
The 80's are back (Score:5, Insightful)
It's about time they did something to improve their situation by going back to a name from the 80's. When you're a front end to an Indian outsourcing business whose only product is your name, changing your name has a big impact. Hopefully they'll still have enough money to buy the rasterline globe trademark back from Infosys.
times change (Score:5, Insightful)
How long before Microsoft lose its monopoly on desktop computing software?
Re:"Ma Bell" should be called "Big Brother" instea (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:"Ma Bell" should be called "Big Brother" instea (Score:5, Insightful)
Can you say accident?
Last week the police came to my home and demanded immediate entry (they said they didn't need a warrant for "a case like this") to search for anyone in need of help that may have called.
This would be a good thing. Warrants aren't required when there is reasonable cause. Having a 911 call placed from your line without an answer is reasonable cause.
You had a bad experience, no reason to think that there's some grand conspiracy to have the police check your house.
I had a situation where at college, a friend and I were sitting playing video games with our door open, when two cops came up, and one used the door for cover with his gun drawn and said something along the lines of don't worry, stay back... just plain "stay out of our way." Some other guy had talked to his girlfriend, she was scared he might kill himself, and that he might have a gun, and thus called the local cops where she was at, who called the local cops where we were at, who responded like they did.
I'd say the guy were pissed (he didn't have a gun, and wasn't going to kill himself; his girlfriend was just overreacting). Do I think there was some grand conspiracy for the cops to have come by my room with guns drawn? Hell know, coincidence and accident man. Nothing more, nothing less.
Return of the Trusts (Score:3, Insightful)
Theory of corporations (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at the other side of the coin (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cool (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand, AT&T had a nifty lab of their own. http://public.research.att.com/ [att.com]
I don't see what the hubbub about all of this is, though. The forced split of AT&T was a success, in so much as creating competition and removing the public's reliance on a single firm. With this acquisition by one of the largest baby bells it brings the company back in line to compete. It's not like they'll suddenly be allowed to buy out Verizon and create another monopoly on that scale.
To top things off, even if they were to obtain a monopoly on the telephone system again it would never be as powerful as the one they once had. Today we have Cell Phones and VoIP. There's other means of efficiently communicating over long distances. They would basically have to buy control over most of the network comprising the US portion of the Internet to be able to come close to what they once had. I just don't see that happening any time soon.
My experience with SBC: (Score:2, Insightful)
What does this mean for San Fran and SBC Park? (Score:5, Insightful)
So, now it's probably going to be "AT&T Park ?!" This is ridiculous. I miss the days when our stadiums had names that didn't change. The 49ers have played in Candlestick, which was renamed "3COM," which has now been renamed "Monster" Park. And now the Giant's stadium is getting it's 3rd name as well. uhh. Time to change the freeway signs AGAIN.
And on a side note, is it possible for me to change my Slashdot nickname to "Pepsi Presents AquaOSX?"
Re:"Ma Bell" should be called "Big Brother" instea (Score:3, Insightful)
It's "unreasonable" search. Not "any search."
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
WTF? (Score:3, Insightful)
Or maybe Judge Greene realizes that the telecommunications business has changed dramatically in twenty years and that 'Ma Bell' would no longer have a monopoly, so he doesn't actually give a shit. But don't let that keep you from sensationalizing a story, slashdot!
Re:Ma Bell? Yo no entiendo - SHORT VERSION (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? Many people like to claim that the breakup of AT&T meant nothing. But I have to ask. "Do you have a cell phone?"
I don't see any reason the the telephone monopoly would have ever gladly spawned the cellular telephone network. They might have developed it yes, but they would have had no impetus to provide good coverage and reasonable rates.
Any scenario I could imagine where AT&T was the only phone company providing cell service doesn't look good at all.
Re:Ma Bell? Yo no entiendo - SHORT VERSION (Score:2, Insightful)
Your tax dollars at work ladies and gentlemen (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's another great one for you, the remedy for the anti-trust/monopoly wasn't really a remedy. Each "baby bell" was still a monopoly in it's region. You don't have a choice what phone carrier to use if you're in SBC's region, same with Verizon, SWBell, whatever.
What NEEDED to be done is one company handles all the infrastructure. They wouldn't be allowed to do ANYTHING other than maintain the lines...that's it....nothing more....ever....period. With an oversight commitee or something to keep them from price gouging or taking advantage of that situation. Then they sell access to those lines to anyone who wanted it. You would then have your choice of phone carriers anywhere in the US as well as internet providers over DSL without having to STILL pay SBC/Verizon/whoever for use of their phone line, plus transport of the DSL.
I can't tell you how many people HATE SBC and refuse to do ANY business with them. But because you have to have an SBC line to get DSL if you're in SBC's region, you're just S.O.L. How is that NOT a monopoly? I mean really.
Re:They aren't as dangerous as before (Score:5, Insightful)
The $50-or-so price is cast in stone, as a tariffed rate!
Back about 15 years ago, when the price was merely $33 for flipping a switch (no fancy "OK" buttons to click here), a family friend of ours got a phone line activated.
Turns out, the wires were too ratty/old to hold voice service: static, buzzing, dropped calls, and the like.
The phone company came out, and ran over ONE MILE of new wiring, including telephone poles, through a forest, just to reach his house!
This was in a small little rural town, as you might have guessed. No way would he have been able to pay the true market rate for the labor/equipment to install the phone line, which I guess would have cost at least $10,000.00 if he had hired a crew to do it privately. "Universal service" at work!
This is why you're paying $50 for them to hit a button: the cost to you, and essentially everybody else, was $0.05 for 15 seconds of a call-center employee's time. It's just these rare exceptions, that bring the average subsidized rate up to $50 or so.
And, no, the phone company will NOT give him DSL service today, nor install a second voice line. I wonder why?
Re:What does this mean for San Fran and SBC Park? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Your tax dollars at work ladies and gentlemen (Score:3, Insightful)
For example, with SBC, I pay $11.50/mth per "primary" DSL. That's my cost to SBC to get a customer to my line. Now I say to my LINE because that doesn't automatically bring it to my network like it does with SBC. We also have to pay for a circuit to go from their network to ours. Right now, that's roughly costing me about $10 per user. Then we add on internet bandwidth costs, server costs, and support costs. There's absolutely NO way I can offer DSL to a customer for $14.95/mth even if it's only for 6 months. It costs me about $27-30/mth to supply that DSL.
They don't have to pay for the additional line to their network since it's already on their network. They also subsidize that $14.95 with additional phone service fees. To get that $14.95 you have to also have Caller ID, and Call Waiting at the least.
Basically the same thing happens with these other phone providers. But to offer you service so much cheaper, they're doing it by pretty much killing off their profit margin. Basically, they're probably only making $2/mth off your phone service, but they plan make up for that in sheer volume. However they're burning through their investors' money until they reach the break even point.
But then we have to take into consideration the recent FCC ruling that DSL is considered a data service even though it's offered over phone lines. Believe me, SBC and Verizon WILL find a way to try and twist that to their benefit.
The problem boils down to the people who make, judge, enforce, and interpret laws don't really know what's going on in the industry. They may have a little knowledge...enough to be dangerous. Or they're just thinking from a purely political, business, and/or financial standpoint.
anyway, sorry, I digressed considerably there. Point is sure it's possible, but those companies have to pay through the nose to have access to those same services that can't/aren't subsidized from somewhere else. So what will usually happen if they're cutting the price so low like that is service/support ends up suffering.
Monopoly Subsidized Bell Labs (Score:3, Insightful)
When was the last time that Lucent (the sucessor to Bell Labs) invented anything that was totally groundbreaking like the transitor or UNIX? Never. They are too busy trying to stay afloat (by selling switches and equipment) to fund any significant research.
I wouldn't expect SBC/AT&T to be any different. Either they will only think about quick profits -OR- they will claim (perhaps trufully) that they don't have the cashflow to fund extra research. From SBC Labs' website that you linked to, it looks like their proudest accomplishment was developing a DSL self-install kit. Whoopie.
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)