As Telecom Evolves, "Unthinkable' Merger Looking More Likely; SBC Mulling AT&T Acquisition; FCC once scoffed at SBC buying Ma Bell, but both companies have changed.(INTERNET & TECHNOLOGY)

Publication: Investor's Business Daily

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COPYRIGHT 2005 Investor's Business Daily, Inc.

Byline: REINHARDT KRAUSE

Local phone company SBC Communications is in talks to acquire AT&T, barely three months after making the biggest wireless telecom merger ever in the U.S.

SBC owns 60% of Cingular, the nation's largest wireless firm, which purchased AT&T Wireless for $41 billion in late October. AT&T spun off the wireless unit to shareholders in 2001.

Now SBC has zeroed in on AT&T's remaining assets -- a business phone service division with a stellar list of corporate clients and a struggling consumer unit.

SBC and Ma Bell mulled a merger in 1997, but backed off when the top federal telecom regulator, Reed Hundt, called a deal "unthinkable."

However, SBC and AT&T are much different companies today. Hundt, former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, says an AT&T-SBC would likely be OK'd by government regulators, including the Justice Department....

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