[Peter Cook (Unverified) Posted Jan 12th 2007 10:34AM]

I guess its about time to update this article with the 2007 developments!

[Deb M (Unverified) Posted Nov 28th 2007 9:38PM]

Yes, it definitely is. Who will add to the history? I can mention that, as everyone now knows, "Cingular's name is now AT&T." Most people are surprised when I tell them that Cingular bought AT&T (mainly for the subscribers and towers but also for the name). Everyone just assumes that AT&T bought the other companies. AT&T couldn't buy shoelaces when it was just an LD company.

Also, as for the GTE/United/Sprint tale, one of the interesting bits of the Southern Pacific Railroad/United Communications family was that phone companies used to run cable directly next to the railroad ties. One, the railroads already had permission and licenses allowing them to cross state lines. Two, it helped prevent digging and subsequent cable breaks. Pretty neat, huh?

BTW, in 1980 GTE bought a small data communications company called Telenet (an offshoot of ARPANet), the first public packet switched network, and renamed it GTE Telenet. In 1984, GTE Telenet and United's data network company were the glue of the new "US Sprint," and actually kept it in the black for several of the early years. GTE was quite surprised when United decided to buy them out in 1990. The former "GTE Telenet"/"Telenet, a US Sprint Company," then became Sprint International, headquartered in Northern Virginia but run out of Sprint's Kansas City HQ. Sprint International spun off into Alcatel Data Networks (the systems division) and Global One, a three-headed monster owned by Sprint, France Telecom, and Deutche Telekom, which didn't last, and the entity became part of Equant...(I'm getting very tired and ignorant by now, because I was long gone by then.) Now, as everyone knows, Sprint and Nextel have merged...

Who can pick up and/or correct my memories?