Wha happenning? October 27, 2005
Posted by Aaron in : News , trackbackBack in the days of yore there was a great giant known as AT&T. Its size threattened the well being of the country and a champion named DoJ arose to fight it. After a great battle (7 1/2 years) the giant lay broken into 7 pieces. Fairies protected the beast from being broken into further pieces stating that there was no reason to break these baby bells up further. In the years since then there was much infighting between these 7 pieces and over time they conquered each other (and occasionally other creatures that got in their path). Now only two remain of 7, their names are Verizon and SBC. Both are in their own right, large beasts, however only one has had the daring to seize the great skin that its predicessor was clad in. Today this SBC is in talks with the champion’s decendants seeking permission to reabsorb all that is left of the original giant except for its brother, Verizon. If the champion’s deem it worthy, when finished there will no more be Verizon and SBC, but Verizon and AT&T.
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Wired had a great infoporn graph at one point showing mapping the splitting and merging of the baby bells over time.
Quest and BellSouth still exist, too. They are not as big as SBC and Verizon, but they are remains of the AT&T breakup. SBC’s merger of AT&T (as well as Verizons merger with MCI) are deemed acceptable because of the increased competition that has appeared in recent years from Cable and VOIP.