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Stephen Colbert Helps Explain the Whole AT&T Thing

youtube.com — AT&T just bought Cingular? Cingular was already owned by AT&T? Bell South owns who?! Let Stephen Colbert help you figure this out!

Who dugg this? Made popular Jan 17, 2007

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  • michaelpops, on 10/12/2007, -2/+85Stephen Colbert makes any subject easy to understand.
  • HMTKSteve, on 10/12/2007, -5/+72He got it 90% correct.

    1) He forgot about: Verizon and Qwest.
    2) SNET was also purchased/absorbed by SBC before Ameritech was
  • jpfree, on 10/12/2007, -1/+60It's a perfect analogy really, comparing it to the terminator. Now all that needs doing is for it to be split up again.
  • ICSU, on 10/12/2007, -5/+63like that's hard to achieve
  • BitVector, on 10/12/2007, -3/+49Which would require Arnold Schwarzenegger to run the country and stick a grenade launcher down AT&T's throat, right?
  • haooken, on 10/12/2007, -3/+45Lol, I love the Cramer Button at the end.
  • theone3, on 10/12/2007, -2/+33He's working his way up there - just you wait.
  • noisician, on 10/12/2007, -2/+31@Quaq
    yeah, because certainly the politicians would never rewrite the laws or even the constitution for their own ends
  • Quag, on 10/12/2007, -4/+31@invader

    He wasn't born in the United States, it won't happen ;)
  • invader, on 10/12/2007, -1/+25yeah.. but "presidentinator" doesn't have nearly the same ring to it.. i don't think it'll happen
  • logicalnoise, on 10/12/2007, -0/+17 21 sir, His charectar is based on bill o'reilly(mainly). You know I don't have to answer for him but if you think bill o'reilly is a well formed person of the community then I would need a picture of you so I could avoid whatever dark alleyway you may occupy. I don't think your opinion is invalid. I merely sated that you stated something as fact in all reality colbert is ten times better than most of the crap on comedy central(mind of mencia anyone?).
  • shosterman, on 10/12/2007, -8/+24Considering "Ma Bell" is almost completely reassembled, wouldn't it be...

    And I for one welcome our returning AT&T overlords.
  • logicalnoise, on 10/12/2007, -2/+17Your right, he's not funny...he is seriously funny. The only reason he is funny is because the people he bases the "Colbert" charecter on are really that insane.
    I do want to note that I am a big fan of his, though people wanting him to run for office are idiots.
  • WhackingDay, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15Anyone attempting to relate something as subjective as "comedy" as a boolean variable is a moron.
  • ithejosh, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15"AT&T is the T1000 of corporations no matter how many pieces you break it into it all comes back together again."
  • zouhair, on 10/12/2007, -4/+17Yes "Let me think for you" works fine :)
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -8/+21colbert is better than bush.
  • vertinox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13@"having a bunch of baby bells with only a little bit of money doesn't provide the infrastructure needed to get us..."

    This is debatable on location. There are a few municipalities and incorporated towns that are having initiatives to bring fiber to the curb for its communities. Of course the infrastructure has to exist to have at least fiber to the local DSLAM/Central Office from the telco already.

    The problem is that most telco's have no motivation to bring fiber from the DSLAM to the curb because of that last mile issue for certain communities. Then there are those rural communites that still have 10+ miles from their DSLAM and couldn't get DSL anyways.

    And the third type of community is those who have fiber to mini DSLAM units on their curbs, but can't get fiber because of 50 feet to go or DSL because you need copper POTS from the CO with DSL rack units in a building rather than just a DSLAM in a box.

    Usually those types are gated communities and new housing developments, but eventually they'll be second in line to get fiber (or first depending).
  • rabidg00se, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13Seconded, LOL
  • Moocat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13He shows you the facts, (or factiness) and you can make your own decisions from there.
  • g30ph, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13PREZINATOR!
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11Now all of our calls can route through the nsa! I would like to thank the republicans for helping to create this monopoly all over again. You guys will rule with an iron fist!
  • ThirdPrize, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11This Colbert bloke seems better than Jon Stewart as well. Shame we don't get him in the UK.
  • DeepDoo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Just so you all know, AT&T is not a monopoly. I used to work at a CLEC in an AT&T controlled area. They were our competition. We beat them on price for both DSL and Phone service. Our Combined services package was better. (phone DSL, & long distance) We beat them in DSL range from the CO. We beat them badly in customer service. The company I worked for is completely locally owned. Given all that, how can you say they are a monopoly? They would like to be one, I am sure. But they are not. We beat them like a red-headed step-child in everything we did. They can be competed against. You just have to have the know-how and the drive. They are more like the Borg than the Terminator. I say that because of how they came to be what they are. Southwestern Bell gobbled up other Baby-Bells. Southwestern Bell changes name to SBC. SBC buys AT&T. SBC changes name to AT&T. See how they are the Borg? You will be assimilated and your uniqueness will be added to our own.
  • Keloran, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7so....who do i get my american iPhone off now ?
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7You should NEVER trust a corporation. You can purchase their goods and services, but never trust them.
  • profOblivion, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6@ccanni1028: "two different diagrams"

    Thereby ruining the clever comedic effect of the segment.

    But you're right about there being more diversity in cellular. Fact is, that in that whole diagram, there were only max. two wireless companies - Cingular and at&t wireless (which became Cingular anyway, so really only one wireless.)
  • fluoro, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Yeah, he's great. Overall I still prefer the format of Jon Stewart's show over the Colbert Report. The problem that I occasionally have with Stephen is that when he has a guest on the show he sometimes gets too absorbed in his character and ends up talking over his guest and not really letting them say what they want to say.

    Then again, Stephen's show is also a parody of Bill O'Reilly's show and we all know how Papa Bear doesn't like to let his guests talk if he disagrees with them. So maybe Stephen is doing that on purpose.
  • whymanwhy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6It was funny I did a focus group back in May and some guy from cingular was asking our group of 17-22 year olds about the wireless business. He slowly started to talk about AT&T and was kinda trying way to hard to push the AT&T thing even though we were supposed to be talking about cell phones. I blew up his spot about halfway through and just said, " AT&T is taking over Cingular right". He reeled and fessed up then handed out forms with commercial slogans/mission statement. They all tried to make AT&T personal and not some monolith which I believed it to be. I then made fun of their new age ads with Oasis as the music and made a point that they were trying too hard. I saw this coming for a while and cant wait to see the ads in which my comments played a role in. Oh and 75 bucks for 1 1/2 aint bad. GO FOCUS GROUPS
  • Clevinger, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8@zigamorph: Your baseless argument, even if assumed true, lacks teeth. You say that Baby Bells (or whatever one wants to call non-monopolized competition) cannot provide high bandwidth internet. Why? And is there any reason to think that competition would somehow be bad? Will it increase the cost of your current connection? If the 'Baby Bells' lack the infrastructure, is anyone holding a gun to your head and forcing you to leave the larger ISPs?
  • izzie2, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Ok so your company has drive and ambition.
    Watch and see how fast your boss cashes that check from AT&T.
    A monopoly (just like in the game monopoly) is achieved by waiting the little guy out.
    It's just a matter of time.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8I motion for the immediate removal of anyone that uses 'LOL' as TWO of the NINE words they used to express their thoughts.
  • raynejarre, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I used to work for Cingular when they bought AT&T Wireless, and I got to work with the AT&T Wireless customers whom Cingular screwed. There was enough confusion then, when they were told that they still had their AT&T wireless coverage and plan, but then their bills came from Cingular. Lots of people who were confused on if they had an AT&T calling plan, or a Cingular one. Even better, former AT&T customers were not eligible for Cingular's rates, so when rollover came out, we had a bunch of AT&T customers wanting rollover. If they wanted it, they needed to migrate, which required a 2 year contract and much headaches.

    Now Cingular is going back to AT&T...this is going to just confuse the hell out of customers :p There is a reason I never have owned a Cingular phone...hell, 1/2 the people at the call center where I worked used Verizon. :p Great video, it humored me.
  • noseeme, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8Haha, yeah, I wasn't really expecting a "Mad Money" reference.
  • AceTracer, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5If this is the first time you've seen that quote used then I think you sir are the one that's ignorant, or at least living under a rock. The rest of us dugg it down because you're ***** tired of it.
  • diggerphelps, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Wow, he completely left out PacBell/PacTel.
    [yeah, I know, it's comedy]
  • geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Uhh, BellSouth owned the bigger half of Cingular, that's why AT&T wanted it back (it only held 40% of Cingular, like the sketch said; Cingular merged with AT&T Wireless, and now Cingular is merging back into AT&T to recombine into AT&T Wireless). Now, AT&T has control of the biggest name in Wireless in America (regardless if you hate them), and has one of the widest sprawls of residential telephony (behind Verizon; ironically, Verizon is selling off its stakes in residential telephony to smaller companies in effort to expand its fiber-based businesses). Assuming the next logical step for AT&T is to repurchase these regional telephone lines, Ma Bell has returned.

    Somewhere, there's a judge and a few anti-trust lawyers rolling in their graves.
  • victorcgalanis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Yeah, looks like I am going to be writing three different checks to AT&T now...

    btw, the video of Colbert with Kristol on that page is priceless.
  • rajivvarma, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T#Creation_of_the_new_AT.26T
  • DCstewieG, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3And wonderfully, Bill O'Reilly is a guest tomorrow (Thursday) night.
  • XStatic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2That doesn't reflect the wireless side.

    Cingular was a created by a BellSouth and SBC wireless merger and grew out of 11 regional companies; Southwestern Bell Wireless, Pacific Bell Wireless, Nevada Bell Wireless, Ameritech Cellular, SNET Wireless, SBC Wireless, BellSouth Mobility, BellSouth Mobility DCS, BellSouth Wireless Data, some Cellular One markets, and Houston Cellular. Some of these were divided from Advanced Mobile Phone Service, Inc., which was a subsidiary of AT&T created in 1978 to provide cellular service nationwide. AMPS, Inc. was divided among the RBOCs as part of Divestiture.
  • ccanni1028, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2They really need to make up their mind on the company name. They are wasting money and charging their customers for it in "service fees".

    It cost approximately US$5 Billion to merge AT&T into Cingular and now it is estimated to be another US$7 Billion to reconvert everything back to AT&T. The worst thing is that over half of each of those totals were used for product branding/advertising.
  • ccanni1028, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2GraphicNature - Cingular/AT&T is cellular. BellSouth/AT&T is for home phones.
  • Clark3934, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Unlike Cingular, AT&T is a trademark that is recognized world-wide.
  • JakePM, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2absolutely hilarious - to say the least. Well done Stephen and team!
  • kevincw01, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2nope, they're trying to get back to being AT&T...and it was worth 13+Billion to do it.
  • fluoro, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Wrong, he's against facts. Those usually require reading, and he doesn't read. Truthiness, on the other hand, doesn't require facts.

    btw, Digg's in-editor spell checker is underlining "Truthiness" in red. Clearly, that's a bug!
  • forensicmeteobo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3FYI: It was actually done because Jim Cramer was on the Colbert Report a few days back, and Stephen was trying to emulate Cramer's show by giving his own financial advice.
  • TinFoil209, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I always thought that the breaking and remerging of the bells and AT&T had more to do with getting some of the old board members out that had stock options for 30-40 years plus. Everytime one generation is about to kick the bucket and families will cash the stock out. The board members who are newer want to weed them out (greed). This is how the railroad companies did it about 20 years ago with Pacific and R&R Railroad kept changing territories and board control until the old guys are left in the dust...
  • DeepDoo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2my point was that there is always a way to compete against the big guy. As for pushing us out, yeah, they tried. They would do things to us like "accidentally" cut our copper or fiber. They were always trying to price us out. They tried technical solutions to their legal problems. For Example: They were required by law to let us lease their lines for our customers. We had to provide the switch and service, they just had to let us lease the copper pair from them. They didnt like of course. Their solution was, starting with new editions, take fiber out there instead of copper. they would put a brick in the edition on that fiber and run copper from that to the houses. When we would ask for a pair for one of those houses they could say there was not copper between that house and the CO so they could not give us what we wanted. We solved that with lawyers and made them take copper to the new editions for us.
    Stuff like that. And yes, I imagine a big enough check from them would put us out of business. But so far, that has not happened, even with bigger CLECs like NTS
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