AT&T moves HQ to Dallas from San Antonio

What's that, you didn't know AT&T was based in Texas? Yeah, ever since all those mergers (re-)created AT&T, its HQ has been in the former SBC offices in San Antonio, which is why certain services tend to roll out there first. It looks like the Alamo City isn't quite big enough for Ma Bell, though -- it's just announced that it's moving its corporate headquarters to Dallas in order to be closer to the airport. Yes, the airport. Dallas-Fort Worth Internation is country's third-largest airport, and AT&T wants travel to and from HQ to be more convenient and cost-effective. AT&T also has about 1,300 different suppliers and vendors in the Dallas area who employ some 45,000 people, so moving closer to them seems like a no-brainer. The company's Telecom Operations unit is staying put, however, so only about 700 of the 6,000 workers currently in San Antonio will be schlepping across the state. The transition should be completed within the year -- here's hoping some of those cost savings make their way down to us.

[kastonie @ Jun 27th 2008 9:00PM]

why no houston love? we have the premiere Att store near downtown... and our airport is big too

[Jordan Biffle @ Jun 27th 2008 9:11PM]

WOOT, Another win for North Texas.

[Grimes @ Jun 27th 2008 9:28PM]

That's a whole different kind of barbecue.

[Nick @ Jun 27th 2008 9:32PM]

San Antonio is like an oasis in the middle of the desert. A desert filled with trailers and truck nutz.

[Nick @ Jun 27th 2008 9:36PM]

Just kidding, I was thinking of Austin.
San Antonio has truck nutz too.

[MastrCake @ Jun 27th 2008 10:02PM]

trailers, truck nutz, and Pistons :)

All related to trucks, although I had to throw in an NBA reference too, right?

[RC @ Jun 27th 2008 10:16PM]

....... It's the San Antonio Spurs.
The Pistons are from Detroit.

[JJ @ Jun 27th 2008 10:39PM]

I live in Austin, My wife and I go to San Antonio about once a year. We are always happy to leave. Seriously, why would anyone want to live there? Its nice to visit the Alamo and go, "wow, there is the Alamo". They also have a nice are gallery, and visiting some of the Spanish missions are cool. The rive walk is massively overrated. Seriously, I would rather go down to the river in Austin for the day. I don't blame AT&T for heading out, even if Dallas is only mildly better.

There is another airport in Dallas BTW. Southwest owns Love Field, which is dirt cheap to fly into/out of if you are going to other TX destinations or nearby states. I used to get $33 one way fairs from Austin a few years back...

[Haikibutsu @ Jun 28th 2008 1:09AM]

JJ, Leave my San Antonio ALONE! I live there, fyi.

[barb @ Jul 3rd 2008 2:20PM]

as opposed to dallas, the new jersey-los angeles hybrid of white trashness? it never ceases to amaze me of trashtastic dallasites are. they have the obnoxious mannerisms and speech like jersey and the plastic vapidness of la. without the money.

[sendmarksmail @ Jun 27th 2008 9:33PM]

Houston, San Antonio, what next Dallas?

[Chris @ Jun 27th 2008 9:54PM]

Having contracted for AT&T in downtown San Antonio, I know that a lot of the reports from this talk about them running out of room. That has nothing to do with it. Of the six major buildings they occupy downtown, half of them have a 75% occupancy or less. From the numbers they quoted, the 700 they talk about would be right about the number of the executive and upper management staff, sales, and all the marketing. Accounting, operations, and HR would stay put. I'm sure we won't hear the real motive for another two years after they announce a merger and/or partnership.

[AustinTX @ Jun 27th 2008 10:14PM]

Errr... am I the only one who sees the irony of this? The whole corporation moves so that the suits can be closer to an airport....

This is a TELECOMMUNICATIONS company! With all that bandwidth, technology and money bins full of cash, I would expect them to be among the best-equipped to provide for "face-to-face" meetings via teleconferencing.

[RC @ Jun 27th 2008 10:17PM]

Yes, because we all know that AT&T can do an entire U-Verse deployment through teleconferencing.

[AustinTX @ Jun 27th 2008 10:14PM]

Errr... am I the only one who sees the irony of this? The whole corporation moves so that the suits can be closer to an airport....

This is a TELECOMMUNICATIONS company! With all that bandwidth, technology and money bins full of cash, I would expect them to be among the best-equipped to provide for "face-to-face" meetings via teleconferencing.

[Anthony @ Jun 28th 2008 11:04AM]

Sometimes the E's response time for messages is slow. Just trust it- your messag will appear.

However, ATT just doesn't like the Riverwalk in San Antonio. If you listen to their latest commercials backwards you can hear the message very clearly. They prefer traffic jams, toll roads & all the crappiest restaurant chains.

[AustinTX @ Jun 27th 2008 10:16PM]

Errr... am I the only one who sees the irony of this? The whole corporation moves so that the suits can be closer to an airport....

This is a TELECOMMUNICATIONS company! With all that bandwidth, technology and money bins full of cash, I would expect them to be among the best-equipped to provide for "face-to-face" meetings via teleconferencing.

[Wwhat @ Jun 28th 2008 1:31PM]

Those bins of cash have to get discreetly to the right people, preferably in ways that don't leave electronic traces.

[Mike @ Jun 27th 2008 10:20PM]

The boardwalk is amazing.

USAirways used to fly direct to san antonio, but now its only dallas.

Schlitterbahn + Rudy's + Henry's Puffy Tacos FTW

[Trey @ Jun 27th 2008 11:22PM]

You mean Riverwalk, right? The Boardwalk is in Atlantic City.

[Joseph Singer @ Jun 28th 2008 10:33AM]

The Boardwalk is in Atlantic City. Perhaps you may have meant the Riverwalk?

[Mike @ Jun 28th 2008 11:09AM]

aww come on you guys knew what i meant :P

a long day at fedex can confuse words easily :)

[bradwjensen @ Jun 27th 2008 10:33PM]

I honestly believe AT&T is out to fuck up the world, and help enslave people for governments to control even more than they do now.

Before it was "One world, one card."; which I believe fits the new Real ID cards Americans will soon have, and now it's "Connecting people with their world, everywhere they live and work, and do it better than anyone else."

They seem to be wanting to get people to believe that having one card or phone with tracking devices places in them to see where you are and what you look at on the device (to do everything) is best for you because it is easy to control everything. What people don't see is if everything they have is controlled by one card or chip implanted in their body in the future, these things can be destroyed or turned off when wanted by governments and you will have no money, no identity, and no chance at anything. You will then be a slave, and can not talk back to anyone 'higher' than you.

If people don't believe or understand what I and talking about then YOU NEED to WAKE UP and EDUCATE yourself.

For starts, watch the movie ZEITGEIST!
zeitgeistmovie com

The take a look at speeches the Kennedy brothers gave, then interviews from people who seen the shootings themselves. Watch the film of him being shot and notice where the bullet enters from the front and opens his skull in the back side. Notice the CIA people at Kennedy's brothers killing.

"Knowledge is power"
"The truth shall set you free"
"When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace."

Educate yourself, the Internet is a great place to start.

[RC @ Jun 27th 2008 10:47PM]

Why is it that people want you to get educated by having you watch some movie or read some book or website that would actually increase the amount of stupidity your brain contains?

[AmirRh @ Jun 27th 2008 11:30PM]

Dude...no one gives a shit where you are...they aren't tracking you...chill out. "Educate yourself...the internet is a great place to start" and it was brought to you by AT&T.

[Chase @ Jun 28th 2008 1:06PM]

p
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[foxrose @ Jun 27th 2008 10:37PM]

It gets even worse when you remember that SBC (The real parent company) was based in St. Louis for many decades and had built up a huge physical presence. There was no intelligent reason to move.

Why the move to San Antonio? Well, when they got a new CEO he came to town and applied to join an upscale country club. They interviewed, checked him out, and decided they didn't want to associate with him. He was so mad about being rejected by St. Louis business leaders he moved the whole company, leaving two giant office buildings and a massive data center behind. They have never been fully utilized since, and does not appear they sold them. This was reported widely in the newspapers, but no one ever held him accountable.

You now wonder what the reason for another move might be? You can make a pretty good bet that it is some petty self-serving thing. God help the sharelholders in the face of this arrogant self importance. Even more, God help us (their customers) as we pay over and over for all this.

Don't look for any spine from state regulatory agencies. They just rubber stamp any and all rate increase requests. Checking out their record is another whole story of corruption or incompetence (don't bet it isn't some of both).

[itdoesntmatter @ Jun 27th 2008 11:45PM]

I work in one of those huge office buildings in STL, and believe me, they're being fully utilized. AT&T still has a huge presence here.

[J @ Jun 28th 2008 12:55AM]

Yeah, AT&T doesn't employ anyone in their Bridgeton NOC and Depot.

This is actually a good move for AT&T, getting out of that little town and into a real city.

[none @ Sep 8th 2008 3:17PM]

sshhh... you know those brand new condos going up on the corner of broadway & hildebrand? the ceo of at&t was originally supposed to have the penthouse suite. a local car dealer who was an investor in the project "somehow" claimed the prized location for himself leaving the underneath floors for pres. att. his wife, who has never liked san antonio in the first place, surely was pleased when her husband said, "screw this! we're moving to dallas". bet mr. car dealer is scratching his head it this one... talk about selfish reasons, for all of those big-wigs.

[RC @ Jun 27th 2008 10:50PM]

Karma for St. Louis then?

I don't get your complaint about regulators. Are you actually suggesting it should be illegal for a company to choose where to locate their headquarters?

[dave3000 @ Jun 27th 2008 11:20PM]

face it haterz - dallas is the bee's knees. you can knock the airport excuse all you want, but it's legit. there is no better airport to have as your home base.

there's one more reason not mentioned.... yet. jerryworld opens next football season. anyone wanna bet who wins the naming rights for that stadium?

metroplex, FTW.

[hiko36 @ Jun 27th 2008 11:33PM]

Good lord that, the stadium is massive. I drove by it the other day and was in awe. Then I remembered eminent domain...

[dagamer34 @ Jun 27th 2008 11:24PM]

Awesome. That makes for the 2nd telco in the metroplex (other is Verizon)

[thenumber81 @ Jun 27th 2008 11:35PM]

Yay i live in dallas :)

[T. Dougherty @ Jun 27th 2008 11:36PM]

Companies certainly can relocate their headquarters, given a reason that does not cost shareholders and subscribers unnecessary money.

Relocation costing hundreds of millions (ultimately) simply because the CEO was unhappy about being socially rejected constitutes gross malfeasance. Too bad their Directors and the crony system wouldn't stop this dereliction of duty.

Since nothing happened, now they feel free to do it again and become even more arrogant.

[Drew Hopson @ Jun 28th 2008 12:02AM]

Dont forget...Research in Motion moved to Irving just last year...It is only a few miles down the road. DFW has a really large telco workforce.

[jamesn @ Jun 28th 2008 12:30AM]

AT&T has a massive presence already in Dallas. Three buildings in downtown alone.

The real reason they're moving headquarters may have as much to do with the couple hundred million they're going to pay these guys for naming rights than the location of the airport.

(and don't think Jerry Jones can't demand that a large corporation move it's headquarters to Dallas in exchange for naming rights.)

[jamesn @ Jun 28th 2008 12:33AM]

Damnit.

I meant these guys: http://stadium.dallascowboys.com/

[RC @ Jun 29th 2008 12:54AM]

I wouldn't be suprised if AT&T got the naming rights to the New Cowboys Stadium.

[Anthony @ Jun 28th 2008 7:55AM]

JJ from Austin.
San Antonio has over 2 million people and is one of the fastest growing metros. San Antonio does have 5 other F-500, Valero Energy, now the largest Oil Co. in America and Clear Channel, the largest Advertisng co. in the U.S. San Antonio is a top covention city and attracts over 26 million visitors. Austin is the city that is overrated. There is nothing there besdies 6th street and UT. Quite boring. Dallas and San Antonio are full fledge big cities, with large freeway systems, better shopping, entertainment. Austin has no Zoo, no theme parks, no big time sports, no Arts districts. San Antonio has two major Arts Districts, better musuems, a new Smithsonian as well. San Antonio also has the 6th largest downtown resident population in the USA with about 25,000 residents according to the U.S. Census. Dallas and Houston have about 5,000. Austin less has about 6,000. Also, believe it or not San Antonio has more college students than Austin. I pick San Antonio over Austin any day. Austin will never be in the same league as these two cities. I use to live in San Antonio five years ago. The Alamo City will recover from losing AT&T.

[Gh0st @ Jun 28th 2008 9:01AM]

Way to put it to him. The only thing you forgot about Austin is the Capitol building where you can go to see a bunch of people do stuff that people only care about when they don't like what's happening.

I've lived in SA for 20+ years and even I didn't know half of the stuff you say we have, thanks for the heads-up!

[Chase @ Jun 28th 2008 1:06PM]

this just in... San Antonio is a cesspool that smells bad, has the worst incidence of illegal immigrants in Texas, and has been trying for YEARS to act like a big boy when all it is a historical town that got a basketball team by shear luck.

[Rafael Blanco @ Jun 28th 2008 10:31AM]

Another big company move to Dallas, I live in Dallas and love it, it good for our economy, and improve the jobs quality in the area. But the DFW area need to reconsider their resources and architecture, there's too many people and the commute is getting longer and longer every month.

[Rafael Blanco @ Jun 28th 2008 10:32AM]

Another big company move to Dallas, I live in Dallas and love it, it
good for our economy, and improve the jobs quality in the area. But
the DFW area need to reconsider their resources and architecture,
there's too many people and the commute is getting longer and longer
every month.

[C$ @ Jun 28th 2008 12:18PM]

I work at AT&T in San Antonio. It was crazy when this news hit our e-mails yesterday. It was very "the sky is falling" kind of reaction. Needless to say; not much work got done the rest of the day...

[muddyh2o @ Jun 28th 2008 12:44PM]

wasn't san antonio voted the fattest city in america??

[Wwhat @ Jun 28th 2008 1:02PM]

Should they not move closer to a military airfield instead? Some place the blacksuited NSA twerps can land and install their taps on everybody?

[Joe Pollicino @ Jun 28th 2008 1:52PM]

basically now its gonna take two more days if i need to get a replacement phone now! eeek

[Joe Pollicino @ Jun 28th 2008 1:52PM]

basically this is odd.