OT: sbc merger (was internet phones)

[Brian K. White]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mike Schwartz (PC Support)" <mschw at athenet.net>
To: <filepro-list at lists.celestial.com>
Sent: Friday, April 21, 2006 11:35 AM
Subject: RE: OT: internet phones


>> On Fri, Apr 21, 2006, Fairlight wrote:
>> >This public service announcement was brought to you by Mike Schwartz (PC
>> >Support & Services, Appleton, WI):
>> >>
>> >>      SBC has been working with me over the past year or so.  We've
>> tried
>> >
>> >Ah, so you're now being serviced by AT&T?  :(  Funny how they're getting
>
>     Yes, now that AT&T can legally bind up to it's old babies, it is doing
> so.  The local phone guys kept me pretty well filled in as to what was 
> going
> on the past 10 years or so.
>
>     Several years ago, pre-merger, the local SBC office in Appleton had
> purchased all the fiber optic cable and so forth in order to provide DSL 
> to
> the city and had the people standing by, ready to start installing it. 
> Then
> they entered this pre-merger era.  They sold off the DSL and optic cables
> and stuff that were already sitting in their warehouse, then offered a lot
> of their people early retirements, so they could look really profitable on
> paper for a couple of years before the merger.
>
>     Then, right after the merger, they hired back all the people that had
> accepted their early retirement bonuses.  They also had to buy back all 
> the
> fiber and DSL stuff they had just gotten rid of!
>
>     It was just about impossible to get a phone line installed around here
> for several years and it delayed DSL service to much of Appleton for more
> than 5 years.  All this was just to play financial games.
>
>     SBC did lose some business by doing this, though.  TDS Metrocom and
> other phone companies made some business gains in the city because the few
> remaining SBC phone installation guys were just too swamped to get 
> anything
> done.  It got so bad that I didn't even bother to call SBC when businesses
> needed phone lines moved.  I told my customers to just call TDS right 
> away,
> unless they wanted to wait a couple of months to let SBC move the lines.

My friend has been working for sbc for a short while (year maybe) and is 
dealing with the merger now. Apparently at least on paper sbc bought at&t, 
though sbc had 2 data centers in the US and at&t had 18 scattered around the 
world.
They just handed him all new different job, responsibilities, boss, 
co-workers... He's now supporting solaris/aix/linux machines in all 20 data 
centers, though he may never set foot in any of them.
He agreed with all of the above Mike just described too.

Brian K. White  --  brian at aljex.com  --  http://www.aljex.com/bkw/
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Brian K. White  --  brian at aljex.com  --  http://www.aljex.com/bkw/
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filePro  BBx    Linux  SCO  FreeBSD    #callahans  Satriani  Filk!