AT&T to cut 10,000 jobs post-merger

[gtalum]

Wow that's crazy. Even Brighthouse (our cable company), who uses the same technology as Vonage and marks it up, is about the same price as my local phone bill. But like Vonage they include unlimited long distance.

[capefear]

If I may respond to this thread. I see nothing wrong with AT&T merging with BellSouth. It is purely legal. Back in the day Bell was actually a well protected monoply by the government. Despite being well regulated and scrutinized closely with every transaction, it was the only true telephonic monoply that people either loved or hated. Now, some of you are concerned that this merger might creat a monoply on the telecommunications market, hardly. The reason why this is legal and not considered a monoply is because there are way too many telecommunication company's offering phone service whether cable, DSL, lanline, etc. This is a true competitive market and AT&T is just re-creating itself to become more competitive. It is a mere business deal that works well with shareholders, but not the employees. Like Fwbreeze stated that the reason some of the jobs are getting lost is because of duplication. You cannot run an efficient and profitable business if you have too many duplicate job duties. The distinct advantage consumers have is that there are more competitors out there that can service your telephone needs. Thus, AT&T would have to lower rates and improve quality and customer service in order to fight for your dollar. Whatever tried to kill Ma Bell in the 80's failed, because I think it is becoming reborn again.

[Lindaloo]

Your thinking is wrong IMO capefear.

[capefear]

Your thinking is wrong IMO capefear.

If I am wrong, then please enlighten me as to why I am wrong, thanks.

[Lindaloo]

That is my own thinking. I also said IMO (in my opinion) Thanks.

[angelwing]

Sigh, if it wasn't the need of the phone to keep in touch with the one sis-in-law we'd get rid of it, we never use the thing except one a month for one phone call and the bill is $53.00/month because the sis-in-law lives in what they consider a toll-call area which is 50 miles away...so stupid. Everyone else is via e-mail

Hmmm, me thinks I'm going to talk to the old man to see if we can just get rid of the phone period.

[alicia-w]

that's an expensive phone call!

[angelwing]

Standard rates here. It's set up this way as he calls his sister 3x's a month and the phone call lasts from 4 to 6 hours. Prior to me changing it to unlimited, the bill was almost $100/month...

[alicia-w]

Yikes!!!

[Pondbuilder]

"But those "choices" are not giving me better prices. IMO, it is all about "gain" for them"

Sorry to disagree Lindaloo but if you added up your local phone bill and long distance phone bill and priced them in 1986 dollars vs todays dollars you are paying less for the option of making a lot more phone calls and spending much more time on the phone making many more long distance calls.

[Lindaloo]

"But those "choices" are not giving me better prices. IMO, it is all about "gain" for them"

Sorry to disagree Lindaloo but if you added up your local phone bill and long distance phone bill and priced them in 1986 dollars vs todays dollars you are paying less for the option of making a lot more phone calls and spending much more time on the phone making many more long distance calls.

gtalum helped me already, thanks.