AT&T Wireless

AT&T Wireless Services, Inc. was, before October 26, 2004, the third largest wireless telephone carrier in the United States, based in Redmond, Washington, and traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the stock symbol "AWE". Formerly part of AT&T Corp., as of January 1, 2004, the largest single shareholder of AT&T Wireless was Japan's NTT DoCoMo.

On October 26, 2004, AT&T Wireless completed a merger with Cingular to become the largest wireless carrier in the United States. Under the agreement, only the Cingular brand would survive. On November 16, 2004, every single AT&T Wireless store was rechristened under the Cingular banner.

In late 2005, SBC (the majority partner in Cingular) acquired AT&T Corp., and renamed the combined company AT&T, Inc..

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.

Partnerships

Rogers AT&T Wireless was a publicly traded partnership between Rogers and AT&T. Rogers bought out AT&T's stake in 2004 and took the company private.

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 February 17, 2006, Cincinnati Bell took full control of Cincinnati Bell Wireless by purchasing Cingular's 20% ownership for $80 million.

Revival of AT&T Wireless

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 AT&T Press Release that it would be acquiring BellSouth's telephone and wireless operations. A revival of the AT&T Wireless brand is definite as BellSouth's 40% ownership of Cingular Wireless will be transferred to AT&T (the primary impetus behind AT&T's acquisition of BellSouth was to acquire the remainder of Cingular, which was the two companies' largest single revenue source in 2005).

References

External links

Official company web site
AT&T Wireless Page @ PCS Intel - Contains large amounts of historical information and multimedia on the company
The Fall of AT&T Wireless - An insightful explanation of why AT&T Wireless went from "industry leader" to "industry loser"