Ma Bell returns: AT&T buys BellSouth for $67 billion

Ma Bell returns: AT&T buys BellSouth for $67 billion: "Filed under: Cingular

The incest in the Bell family is getting a little out of control, but we're gonna try and break it down for you, being that news just hit the wires that AT&T is buying BellSouth for 67 billion. (Before we get started, we might recommend you hit up The Engadget Guide to AT&T Wireless/Cingular/SBC/AT&T merger mania we wrote last year.) So AT&T (formerly SBC, formerly AT&T), is buying the last of the un-amalgamated missing links in the Ma Bell puzzle, BellSouth. As you may recall, BellSouth, one of the original 7 baby bells, also owns 40% of Cingular (complementing the 60% once owned by SBC, which is now called AT&T). Thus this sale would effectively transfer ownership of the nation's largest wireless carrier to AT&T. Now, to give this a little context: the only other non-baby bell left outside the AT&T umbrella in one form or another is Verizon (formerly Bell Atlantic, which merged with Nynex and GTE), which we'll bank won't soon be comin' home to mama. So there you have it, if the SEC approves AT&T's purchase of BellSouth, we once again more or less return to the AT&T of 1984, 'cept now with a little more competition in the backbone and wireless services space. See, with a little of our help you'll know for whom "