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Comment by username223 | Hacker News Reader

Probably neutral in the short term: like when the awful Pacific Bell renamed itself "Cingular," it might confuse a few people. In the long term, it's the same jalopy with a new coat of paint.

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Admittedly I could be told I'm nitpicking, but Pacific Bell never renamed itself Cingular (not directly anyway). PacBell was bought by Southwestern Bell in 1997 and became SBC. In 2000, SBC Wireless partnered with BellSouth's mobile division to create Cingular. Cingular then bought AT&T Wireless in 2004. SBC later bought AT&T and renamed itself to the company it just bought, aka AT&T. In 2007, AT&T nee SBC bought BellSouth and thus finally owned all rights to the Cingular name, which promptly was dumped and instead renamed to AT&T.

The phone company space is the most incestual circle jerk mess imaginable. Judge Greene has to be rolling over in his grave!

Thanks for the history! It almost makes me long for good old Ma Bell, who at least had the good sense not to change her name...

All that renaming and buying out of companies was basically Ma Bell reforming herself like the liquid metal Terminator from Terminator 2. Hence the comment about Judge Greene rolling over in his grave.

It's kinda hard to find these days (gotta love Viacom's legal team!), but Stephen Colbert did a hilarious segment [0] on the Colbert Report about the history of AT&T/Cingular back in 2007. Terminator 2 indeed!

Jump ahead to 2:20 to see the segment: [0] http://www.cc.com/video-clips/eamlaf/the-colbert-report-bear...

For those not in USA: http://imgur.com/a/4lIWw

The Wall Street Journal published a helpful chart of all the Bell Telephone spin-offs, mergers, and name changes. https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/P1-BZ033_LIONDO_1...

(Also here in case of paywall: http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/24/13389592/att-time-warner-... )

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