Cingular --> AT&T Mobile?

How did you post before becoming a member???

 

You beat me to it Jay, I was just going to ask that....

 

We think alike, isn't that scary?

-Jay

 

i concur..........not everyone know everything but our job here is to make everyone informed.......not call them naive because they arent informed

 

Let's keep this thread on topic. Thanks.

 

we seem to get off-topic on every thread :lol:

but yeah........we do know everythin abou it........we are just arguing over the name........which we now know will be AT&T and thats definitely final.............

 

I've heard that in areas that have landline service through the pre-merger AT&T (SBC/AT&T), the name will be "AT&T Mobile by Cingular". Areas that have landline service through pre-merger BellSouth and areas that aren't serviced by AT&T will pick up the name "Cingular Wireless-Part of the AT&T Family". Too confusing for me. Just pick one name and keep it.

 

thats absolutley ridiculous and i totally agree with you T Sizzles.........they need to pick one name cuz with all of these mergers its reallllly confusing for some of those consumers

 

You are mis-informed, they will stick with 1 name for Cingular for the entire country. As of right now it appear's it's going to be straight out "AT&T" to make everything appear seemless for all of their services.

Right now the advertisment has been "Cingular wireless, part of AT&T" (or something close to this) and BellSouth from my understanding has been using the same advertisment slogan.
In fact here in NJ, they include Both in their advertisment as now being part of AT&T.

AT&T has decided that it's better to have 1 Internationally recognized name for everything & it makes a lot of sense to do this. Even their press release's say everything is going to be AT&T.

 

I thought that they would just say AT&T - Wireless Division or something along those lines since they want everything just to have the AT&T name. As I waited for my interview to begin I asked the employees at the Cingular store some questions, and they said that they would begin to rebrand at the middle of this year..

 

The middle of the year? that's interesting I would have thought it would have gone along with the 1st Qtr of 07 as they have been claiming. Maybe they will do everything else on the billing/Alpha tag side 1st, then the stores?

I do have a feeling they may make the stores a 1 stop shop for everything, not just wireless, but it's just a guess of mine.

 

They are. I mentioned it and he repeated on how great it was going to be having a 1 stop shop thing.

 

Are they goin to do one-stop-shops cuz that will be great........if only there was some telecommunications competition in my area..........its all AT&T until you get to Oley and Birdsboro and Douglassville and then its D&E Communications which used to be the old Conestoga Communications in case anyone was wondering........AT&T still has their CallVantage service right???

so then if they dont cover my area they will have their phone products cell phones and CallVantage in one store.........that will be nice......

and it looks like if they are gonna do anything itll be an OTA that will prolli happen pretty soon.........this will give those Cingular customers a chance to get their facts together before the stores change....

 

I noticed that in their press release today with the name change blitz starting Monday. I agree it will be nice to go to 1 location for all your communication & even TV needs.

They still have the CallVantage service, and you can get that at anytime from their web site. I have had it for almost 2 years now & haven't had any problems (with the exception of a modem/cable line to the house issue).

I am hoping they start offering the free M2H service & include VoIP customers, I think it would help them with this service on selling it and make them larger then Vonage.

 

Well lets put it this way. I have 3 landline numbers and the LD is still with AT&T. No one could ever beat teh price it is $24.99 for all 3 accounts. it would have costed more than triple that on VZW.

 

Your right, I have my VoIP for $24.95 a month and my 1 landline for our fax machine & for an emergency line (my wife wouldn't let me cancel it) and they are both thru AT&T.
The funny part, is my landline the only time I get a bill for it, is when someone calls outside my local calling area, otherwise I don't pay anything for it.
Someone messed up big time & they still haven't caught it, so it's not a big deal keeping it as a back up line.

 

Lets say the owner of the land line is the one who isputing upteh screws to who provides it to you.

 

There we go:

http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=4800&cdvn=news&newsarticleid=23308

Cingular Is Now the New AT&T

Advertising, Re-Branding Efforts Begin, Will Continue Throughout 2007

San Antonio, Texas, January 12, 2007

AT&T, the standard bearer of communications excellence for more than a century, is getting younger on Monday, when the company folds the six year-old Cingular wireless name into the iconic AT&T brand.

Starting Monday, Jan. 15, AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) is launching a new multi-media campaign to begin transitioning the Cingular brand to AT&T in advertising and customer communications, throughout Web sites and nationwide retail stores, and on company buildings and vehicles.

"Around the world, our customers recognize the AT&T brand for meaningful innovation, a commitment to customer service, high quality and exceptional reliability," said Edward E. Whitacre Jr., chairman and CEO of AT&T. "AT&T, BellSouth and Cingular are now one company, and going to market with our services under one brand is the right thing to do."

"Services are converging and the lines between wireless and wireline are increasingly blurred," said Boyd Peterson, analyst, Yankee Group. "Customers want simplification. By uniting the three company names into one, AT&T has simplified its message to the marketplace."

While the AT&T logo will be prominent in all advertising and communications, the ads will initially include a transitional graphic with both the AT&T and Cingular logos. The co-branded element will help underscore the association of the two companies and transfer Cingular's strong brand equity to the new AT&T. During the transition, the campaign will integrate popular imagery, phrases and icons from Cingular's traditional advertising, including the "raising the bar" tag line, the "Jack" character and the color orange.

Each transition campaign element will conclude with the Cingular and AT&T logos coming together while an announcer states that "Cingular is now the new AT&T." The broadcast spots will conclude with an animation in which the "Jack" character appears to "skywrite" the AT&T globe.

The campaign will kick off with several creative executions called "Raising It Higher," which morphs Cingular's familiar "raising the bar" tag line and imagery into the AT&T globe. The first version of this creative execution is called "Grain," which shows a combine harvesting wheat and appears to be drawing the Cingular five bars, but as the picture zooms out, the AT&T globe comes into focus. Both broadcast TV and print executions are scheduled to start the week of Jan. 15.

Additional spots called "Jets" and "Cars" will start appearing in the coming weeks. Additionally, over the coming months, AT&T will add new creative executions. The brand ads will be complemented soon by call-to-action product ads that will carry similar transitional branding elements.

As part of the re-branding initiative, approximately 2,000 nationwide company-owned wireless retail outlets and store kiosks will be transitioned over the coming year with AT&T-branded signage. Additionally, the approximately 15,000 personnel in these stores and kiosks will begin wearing AT&T-branded apparel in the coming months.

Callers will begin to hear the AT&T name mentioned on Cingular voice greetings in the coming weeks. Merger-transition messages will be placed on envelopes with customer billing starting in the coming weeks, and communications and the AT&T logo will begin to appear on customer bills starting in the coming months. Customers should watch the "remit to" line for when to make checks out to AT&T; those customers who pay their bills electronically or via credit card deduction will be notified as procedures change.

Customers will continue to see existing Cingular product and service names until all necessary legal and regulatory name-change filings are complete. The use of the AT&T and Cingular co-branded graphic will continue until customer awareness levels that Cingular has joined with AT&T are high. Once the transition ends, the color orange will continue to be associated with AT&T's wireless services, while the Cingular brand will be phased out.

AT&T estimates that 20 percent of the operating expense savings from the AT&T-BellSouth merger will come from advertising, as all operations are moved under a single brand. Previously, the three companies each supported distinct brands with three separate advertising campaigns.

AT&T is not disclosing the amount of the brand-transition campaign or media buy.

AT&T Emerging Media Retail Experience
Parallel with its re-branding efforts, AT&T is expanding its retail strategy to take advantage of Cingular's significant retail presence; thousands of stores nationwide are visited by millions of customers each month.

AT&T is creating an in-store "emerging media experience" where consumers can experience products and services before they purchase. Knowledgeable store personnel will be available to guide consumers through product trials and purchasing decisions.

AT&T has expanded its reach in its 13-state pre-merger local service territory, installing AT&T-branded media centers at more than 375 wireless stores. At these centers consumers can learn about, see live demonstrations and order AT&T Yahoo!® High Speed Internet and, where available, AT&T U-verseSM TV or AT&T HomezoneSM.

To help customers in many of these stores, AT&T will hire approximately 400 new sales representatives; many are in place today. These "home solutions consultants" will help customers learn about a range of AT&T wireline services that they can bundle with their wireless services. Additionally, customers today can arrange for a combined bill for wireline and wireless services and order AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet service as well as other key services.

In addition, AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet service is available through more than 750 agent-owned wireless locations, which also will have AT&T-branded signage. Through these additional locations, customers can order broadband and soon, other services.

Note: This AT&T release and other news announcements are available as part of an RSS feed at www.att.com/rss.

About AT&T
AT&T Inc. is a premier communications holding company in the United States and around the world, with operating subsidiaries providing services under the AT&T brand. AT&T is the recognized world leader in providing IP-based communications services to business and the U.S. leader in providing wireless, high speed Internet access, local and long distance voice, and directory publishing and advertising services. As part of its "three screen" integration strategy, AT&T is expanding video entertainment offerings to include such next-generation television services as AT&T U-verseSM TV. Additional information about AT&T Inc. and the products and services provided by AT&T subsidiaries and affiliates is available at www.att.com.

©2007 AT&T Knowledge Ventures. All rights reserved. AT&T is a registered trademark of AT&T Knowledge Ventures. Subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. provide products and services under the AT&T brand. For more information, please review this announcement in the AT&T newsroom at www.att.com/newsroom.

Subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. provide products and services under the AT&T brand..

 

when one company supports this many services.........it makes things a lot easier.........fewer bills........and actually package deals........i cant wait for this trnasition to be complete.........

 

Yup. We had an internal announcement last Friday. Unfortunately, internal releases are not permitted to be shared.

 

well all watch out for the store rebranding it could very well ahppne at one near you. From my take is that by the 21st the one by me will be rebranded with somewhat of a new look.

 

That's sad, you can't share any of this excellent information ahead of time.

 

Since we have 2 corp. stores in town, I wonder which one they will do 1st, the old Blue store or the original Orange store that looks like a bank?
Guess I will have to keep a closer eye on them to see when they start the changes.

 

I would say the one that has the higher value comes first.

 

At one time AT&T was big like this and it was a disaster. Anybody remember Lucent Technologies? Or the AT&T computer line? Those were under one name and were total failures. When they were split up it made them lean and mean and efficient. Look for a return to bloatedness, lack of innovation and higher pricing. Competition is a good thing. Now what will Verizon and Sprint do to stay in the bigger is better game - who will they try to gobble up?

 

I'm very curious to see how that looks.

 

thats interesting :loony:

 

Verizon is waiting for their approvals for their merger with MCI, so AT&T and Verizon will be the 2 big companies serving most of the US.
Sprint got rid of their landline business which is now Embarq.

 

But AT&T really didn't make the computers. They bought NCR and just put the AT&T logo on the NCR machines. The front said AT&T, but the label on the back said NCR. I think they eventually sold off NCR which is why you stopped seeing AT&T branded comuters.

-Jay

 

yeah and with that they sold off their big Tier 1 fiber backbone? I hardly doubt that Embarq and Sprint Nextel are acting as 2 different companies......Embarq probably is giving Sprint Nextel good access to the dark fiber that theyve got on hand