Wave: Looking at the wireless side of the new company, what were the factors that went into the decision to rebrand Cingular as AT&T?
Mr. Whitacre: Well, I was here when we named it Cingular, so I have quite a history with that. You’d like to convey the message to your customers that one company can do all this. That’s difficult to do with having several brand names within your company.
AT&T is a great brand name. It’s a worldwide brand, and it seems logical to me and those of us who made the decision to call all of our products AT&T and to convince our customers that they can get any communications or entertainment from us. That’s better than going with two or three names. So that’s why we did it.
Wave: Did it give you pause at all that you had done so well with the Cingular brand?
Mr. Whitacre: Sure.
Wave: And that while it had certainly made some very positive and significant inroads, you were going back to a brand that had some problems?
Mr. Whitacre: Yes, that’s true. You have to make tough decisions. We had that same difficulty when SBC bought AT&T. Should we use SBC’s name or should we go to AT&T? AT&T is a better-known brand.
And you’re right. They had some troubles when they were AT&T Wireless, but we believe it’s still better to put it all under one brand name. So that’s what we’re going to do. It’s going rather slowly, but we’re doing it.
Wave: Slowly?
Mr. Whitacre: Well, some people would say we’re moving with light speed. I’d say it’s a little slow. So we’ll somehow meet in the middle and hopefully get it all done by mid summer or so.
Wave: Well, you just can’t turn it off overnight.
Mr. Whitacre: Why not?
AT&T Chairman & CEO Ed Whitacre
Now that AT&T has completed its deal to buy Bellsouth, wireless is at the heart of the new company's plans for the future. Chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre talks about the new AT&T and shares his thoughts about net neutrality, convergence, rebranding, and much more!
Click here to listen.
