The Rise Of AT & T

In an increasingly competitive telecommunications market, Bell has continued to surpass expectations by remaining profitable and by growing as a company. Through aggressive marketing campaigns and humanitarian promotions, Bell has attained a superior public image that has established the company as a titan of modern telecommunications. The future is bright for this behemoth

As the telecommunications industry in the United States consolidated and regional ‘Baby Bells’ began to amalgamate, Bell Atlantic, GTE, and Vodafone AirTouch merged in 2000 to form the nation’s largest wireless company, Verizon Wireless (Verizon, 2013). After establishing its headquarters in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, Verizon Wireless launched its foundational strategy of differentiating itself from the competition by building and maintaining a superior network and delivering an exceptional customer experience through its products and services (Strigl & Swiatek, 2011). As a result, Verizon established itself as the recognized industry leader in wireless and has maintained its network advantage by being the first wireless company in the United

SGMT  6050  –  Case  Write-­‐Up   McCaw   Cellular  Communications:  The  AT&T/McCaw  Merger   Negotiation     Armin  Ezatagha     Student  Number  ⏐  205  576  707   eMail  ⏐  aezatagha12@schulich.yorku.ca     Schulich  School  of  Business   Tuesday,  March  05,  2013                                 Current  Telecommunications  Ecosystem     McCaw  Cellular  Communications  (MCC),  although  positioned

Verizon is a major telecommunication provider in the United States. The company is the market leader, with $110 billion revenue and $2.4 billion in profit (MSN Moneycentral, 2012). Verizon has steady revenue streams that are largely based on a subscription model. It has several business segments, including wireless (63.3% of revenues) and wireline (36.7%) (2011 Verizon Annual Report). Most of this report will therefore focus on the wireless business, not only because this is the largest business that the company operates but because it is a rapidly growing and evolving business as well, a function of the rapid pace of smartphone adoption in America.

The primary business of AT&T Incorporation is telecommunication. This American leading company provides both fixed telephony and mobile telephony. Amongst other services that the company offers include broadband television subscription. Currently, AT&T Incorporation is a leading fixed telephony provider and the second largest mobile telephony provider in United States of America. AT&T Incorporation has steadily grown to become the third largest company in Texas, United States. In addition, it is the largest company in Dallas.

Our case study titled, The AT&T and McCaw merger negotiation, provides us with an opportunity to negotiate the terms of the merger between McCaw cellular and AT&T. McCaw was the largest competitor in the rapidly growing cellular telephone communications industry. AT&T was the dominant competitor in long-distance telephone communications in the United States, and one of the largest corporations. Prior to the negotiations, it had no position in cellular communications.

Verizon Communications formed by the merger of two big and successful companies, Atlantic Corp. and GTE Corp., is the largest telecommunication company. The company serves large part of the market in United States. However the company faces certain strengths and weaknesses which affect the way company formulate its strategies.

This organization encourages the development of a comprehensive work environment where all employees are respected and can achieve at their fullest potential. AT&T has a very strong culture and their values are not only shared with management, but by all employees. While mergers are known to affect an organization’s culture, AT & T has proven success with at least three mergers. In October of 2004 AT&T completed a merger with Cingular to become AT&T wireless. In November of 2005, SBC and AT&T finalized their union and with that AT&T Corporation became AT&T Incorporated. The organization became the largest phone company in the United States when they acquired SBC, serving 13 states in the western and southwestern part of the U.S. Their latest acquisition came in Mar of 2006 when Bellsouth was purchased ("AT&T Inc." Notable Corporate Chronologies Online Version, 2006). With the merger of Bellsouth, AT&T picked up another nine states in the Southeast to provide available service in a total of 22 states (Reardon, 2006). The merger of AT&T and BellSouth, along with the consolidation of Cingular Wireless, will continue advancement in the communications and entertainment industry, where they will continue to invent new resolutions for consumers and businesses. These accomplishments prove that AT&T has a successful organizational culture.

The dominant economic traits of this industry start with having an enormous amount of capital required for staying competitive. One is also required to spend lots of money on research and development, as the telecommunications industry seems to be the vision of the future. More and more companies like AT&T are trying very hard to combine their network services of phone line, video and data transfer, high speed internet access, and television cable via one line in the consumers homes. With a successful combination of the above stated services AT&T is hoping to be the industry leader in the near future.

The business case presented focuses on insatiable demand amongst a growing population for a service built on dilapidated, poorly maintained infrastructure, against a backdrop of government deregulation in the telecoms sector. As of 1992, there were a mere 78k telephone lines for the 27m people living in 4.7m households (a population set to double over the coming 24 years), with users suffering success rates of just 25%. Demand was forecast to grow to 500k subscribers by 1996. The recent deregulation of the telecoms sector (via the break-up of TPTC into TPC and TTCL) and the formation of a regulator (TCC) had

Have you ever wondered how your phone company started out? Or the new innovations it has brought about? And maybe even how the business is run? Well, today I’m going to talk about AT&T’s history, the products it sells, the employee jobs and U-verse.

 As a consequence of the governments intervention, the AT&T lawsuit settlement, as well as the shift in the telecommunication industry, it was clear that AT&Ts local telecommunication business was slowly moving away from a monopoly franchise environment. It was moving towards a more competitive environment characterized with more consumer choice and greater competition. Companies such as IBM saw the divestiture of AT&T as an opportunity to provide new telecommunication equipment and services, which would allow them to gain a higher market share. AT&T's stock had up till then been regarded as a stable utility-type stock because of its steady growth and consistent dividend yield. However, AT&T should have kept in mind that they would not have as much market control in the future as they did prior the divestiture, much due to the intensifying competition and regulatory environment changes.

Finnish telephone network was never monopolized by the state, granting many licenses for telephone operations to prevent the Russia to seize its national telephone system when Finland was Russian Grand Duchy. After independence, Finland’s attempts to nationalize poorly performing telecom failed due to political resistance, but could stimulate private operators to upgrade their technology to prevent their nationalization. The legacy of communication business left a lot of competitive companies in the sector for development. However despite all the reasons mentioned above, emerging demand for such technology from global market would be the greatest reason why mobile communication industry emerged in Finland and made Finland a world-leading nation in mobile communication.

In a $35 billion deal, Sprint Nextel prides itself on being able to provide innovative services and technology to a wide range of consumers, business associates, and government officials. Although Mr. Forsee has said, “This merger positions Sprint Nextel for greater success than either company could have achieved alone," there are many obstacles that Sprint Nextel must overcome in order to become the leading cell phone network provider. First, one must examine the problems with Sprint and Nextel before the merger.

AT&T was broken up into the Bell companies in “1974 by the U.S. Department of Justice antitrust suit against the monopoly” (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). Today AT&T has become a competitor vying for control of the telecommunications industry. “In monopolistic competition, there are many firms vying for control of one market. Each firm offers a different type of product, as opposed to perfect competition in which all offer the same product. Each firm, then, has a monopoly in the market of their own product”(Oracle ThinkQuest Education Foundation) AT&T in 1988 began purchasing stock in Sun Microsystems to begin its diversity in product services. Throughout the 90s AT&T continued purchasing more computer companies and cell phone companies to gain market share in the growing telecommunication industry (CyberStreet). Good pricing structures align with costs. AT&T Wireless realized that the marginal cost of a cellular minute was small compared to the cost of acquiring and maintaining customers. Their switch to a flat fee “One-Rate” plan was a huge success, stealing heavy users away from the competition. Prices increased for light users and many became hooked on the cellular lifestyle (Lake Partners Strategy Consultants, Inc. [LPSCI], 2001-2004). AT&T has seen that the ability to change quickly in the ever-evolving telecommunications market will help in gain market share. Its ability to see the value in keeping customers rather