name	AT&T; Mobility LLC
logo
type	Private (subsidiary of AT&T; Inc.)
traded as
foundation
defunct
location city	DeKalb County, Georgia
location country	U.S.
area served	United States Puerto Rico U.S. Virgin Islands
key people	Ralph de la Vega, President and CEO - AT&T; Mobility and Consumer MarketsPeter A. Ritcher, CFO
industry	Wireless telecommunications
products	GoPhone AT&T; Mobile Hotspot MiFi® 2372 AT&T; USBConnect Shockwave 4G Apple iPhone 4
services	Nation Plans $60 Unlimited Talk & Text DataConnect 5GB Unlimited Messaging with Mobile to Any Mobile Calling Mobile Insurance
revenue	US$31.4 billion (2010)
num employees	70,000 (2010)
parent	AT&T; Inc.
homepage
intl	}}

AT&T; Mobility LLC is a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T; Inc. that provides wireless services to 110.6 million subscribers in the United States, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. AT&T; Mobility is the largest wireless telecommunications provider in the United States ahead of Verizon Wireless, which has 97.9 million customers as of the second quarter of 2011. AT&T; Mobility is headquartered in the Lenox Park area of DeKalb Co. Georgia, just outside Atlanta.

Originally Cingular Wireless LLC, a joint venture between SBC Communications and BellSouth, the company acquired the old AT&T; Wireless in 2004; SBC later acquired the original AT&T; and re-branded as "The New AT&T;". Cingular became wholly owned by AT&T; in December 2006 as a result of AT&T;'s acquisition of BellSouth.

In January 2007, Cingular confirmed it would re-brand itself under the AT&T; name. Although the legal corporate name change occurred immediately, for both regulatory and brand-awareness reasons both brands were used in the company's signage and advertising during a transition period. The transition concluded in late June, just prior to the rollout of the Apple iPhone.

On March 20, 2011, AT&T; Mobility announced its intention to acquire T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom for $39 billion. If AT&T; receives government and regulatory approval, AT&T; will have more than 160 million subscribers.

Services

Among the services that AT&T; aggressively promotes is its Rollover Minutes service which allows customers to keep unused minutes from month to month on a twelve-month rolling cycle on its popular nationwide plans. Beginning in July 2007, AT&T; allows its AT&T; Unity plan users to have Rollover, a service which was exclusive to the Nation plans. AT&T; also launched video share in 2007, in which a mobile caller can stream live video from one phone to another over the 3G network with video share capable phones. This allows one mobile phone user to view video from another user's camera through the mobile phone in real time. AT&T; also has A-list. The former competitor Alltel, who is now part of Verizon Wireless, had a program called "My Circle". This allowed for free calls to popular numbers, regardless of the carrier. This program was adopted company wide in February 2009 by Verizon Wireless, and was renamed Friends & Family. AT&T; rolled out their version of the program on September 20, 2009. Customers with individual Nation plans of $59.99 or higher can use A-List with Rollover to select up to five domestic phone numbers to call anytime—including landlines and wireless numbers on any network—without using any of the minutes in their plan. FamilyTalk customers with plans of $89.99 or more can select up to ten numbers which any person in the FamilyTalk plan can call as much as they want.

Employees

A large number of AT&T; Mobility employees are unionized, belonging to the Communications Workers of America. The CWA represented roughly 15,000 of the previous 20,000 formerly AT&T; Wireless employees as of early 2006. As of the end of 2009, the CWA website claims roughly 40,000 workers of AT&T; Mobility are represented by the union.

History

Cingular Wireless LLC was founded in 2000 as a joint venture of SBC Communications and BellSouth. The joint venture created the nation's second-largest carrier. Cingular grew out of a conglomeration of more than 100 companies, with 12 well-known regional companies with Bell roots. The 12 companies included:

Three companies spun off from Advanced Mobile Phone Service, Inc.

*Ameritech Mobile Communications, LLt

*BellSouth Mobility, LLC

*Southwestern Bell Mobile Systems, Inc.

BellSouth Mobility DCS, Inc.

BellSouth Wireless Data, LLC

CCPR Services Inc. d/b/a Cellular One of Puerto Rico and US Virgin Islands

Pacific Bell Wireless, LLC

Pacific Bell Wireless Northwest, LLC

SBC Wireless, LLC

SNET Mobility, LLC

Southwestern Bell Wireless, Inc.

SBC Wireless had previously operated in several northeast markets under the "Cellular One" brand, while BellSouth's wireless operations incorporated the former Houston Cellular.

Cingular's lineage can be traced back to Advanced Mobile Phone Service, which was a subsidiary of AT&T; created in 1978 to provide cellular service nationwide. AMPS, Inc. was divided among the Regional Bell Operating Companies as part of the Bell System divestiture.

With the exception of Pacific Bell and BellSouth Mobility DCS, the digital network consisted of D-AMPS technology. The Pacific Bell and BellSouth Mobility DCS networks used GSM technology on the PCS frequency band (1900 MHz).

In October 2007, AT&T;’s president and chief executive officer Stan Sigman announced his retirement. Ralph de la Vega, group president-Regional Telecom & Entertainment, was named as president and CEO, AT&T; Mobility.

AT&T; Wireless merger

In February 2004, after a bidding war with Britain's Vodafone Plc (45% owners of Verizon Wireless) Cingular announced that it would purchase its struggling competitor, AT&T; Wireless Services, Inc., for $41 billion. This was more than twice the company's trading value.

The merger was completed on October 26, 2004. The combined company had a customer base of 46 million people at the time, making Cingular the largest wireless provider in the United States. AT&T; Wireless was then legally renamed New Cingular Wireless Services, Inc. Shortly after, new commercials were shown with the "AT&T;" transforming into the Cingular logo, and with the Cingular logo's text turned blue to acknowledge the change. First announced on June 22, 2005, Cingular Wireless announced the intention to divest its Caribbean and Bermuda operations and licenses which it acquired from the acquisition of AT&T; Wireless, to Irish-owned and Jamaica-based Digicel Group under undisclosed financial terms.

In 2006, one year following the deal, a high ranking source allegedly close to the sale pointed the Barbados Daily Nation Newspaper towards some SEC filings made by Cingular which were said to establish an idea of the approximate sale price of the deal. According to the SEC filings Cingular was paid around US$122 million, with much of that $122m cost to Digicel going towards the purchasing of the former AT&T; Wireless assets in Barbados.

At the time of the merger, there were two networks: the historic AT&T; Blue Network and the Cingular Orange Network. Both networks contained a mix of both TDMA and GSM facilities. Approximately 50,000 cell sites had to be melded together. From a technical standpoint, the "blue" and "orange" networks were considered different networks until integration was completed in 2005. Enhanced Network Selection (ENS) was used to home cellular devices on either the "blue" or "orange" network during this process.

GSM facilities

In California, Nevada, Northern New Jersey and New York City, Cingular and T-Mobile USA maintained and shared a GSM-1900 network prior to the acquisition of AT&T; Wireless, through a joint venture known as GSM Facilities. The network sharing agreement allowed Cingular to offer local service in northern New Jersey and New York City and T-Mobile USA to offer service in California and Nevada. On May 25, 2004, Cingular and T-Mobile USA announced their intention to dissolve the agreement contingent on Cingular's successful acquisition of AT&T; Wireless, the Cingular network was transferred to T-Mobile USA, with Cingular continuing work on the GSM facilities at AT&T; Wireless sites.

Radio Frequency Summary

The following is a list of known frequencies which AT&T; employs in the United States:

+Frequencies used on the AT&T; Network
Frequency !! Protocol !! Class
850 MHz	GSM/GPRS/EDGE	2G
1900 MHz	GSM/GPRS/EDGE
850 MHz	UMTS/HSPA
1900 MHz	UMTS/HSPA

Network coverage

As a result of its formation through mergers and acquisitions, as well as the rapid technological change in the wireless industry, AT&T; Mobility operates the largest digital voice and data network within its United States footprint reaching over 300 million people or 97% established coverage using different wireless communication standards. The core technology standard for the AT&T; Mobility wireless network is called Global System for Mobile Communications, or GSM. Much of the AT&T; Mobility network footprint now uses GSM-standard 3G wireless technologies (UMTS/HSPA) for simultaneous circuit switched voice and packet switched data communications. AT&T; Mobility also offers Push To Talk (PTT) service using network technology from Kodiak Networks.

Cingular, the predecessor to AT&T; Mobility, supported legacy D-AMPS/TDMA and analog wireless networks. In March 2006, Cingular announced that these networks would be shut down by February 2008. As of March 31, 2007 Cingular ended TDMA supported for GoPhone (pre-paid) customers. On February 18, 2008, AT&T; Mobility officially ended service on their AMPS and TDMA network, except for in areas previously operated by Dobson Communications; the Dobson AMPS and TDMA network was shut down March 1, 2008.

Networks formerly operated by AT&T; Mobility predecessors including Cingular also include various paging services and the Cingular Interactive division, which became Velocita Wireless. Velocita was later purchased by Sprint Nextel.

The AT&T; Mobility wireless data network began in 2002 as a Cingular initiative called "Project Genesis" that involved a GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) overlay of the entire wireless network. Project Genesis was completed by the end of 2004. Later, this network was upgraded to EDGE (Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution) across the GSM footprint.

In 2005, AT&T; Mobility launched a broadband network known as "BroadbandConnect," based on UMTS and High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA), to counter Verizon Wireless and Sprint's EV-DO networks. UMTS service was launched on December 6, 2005 in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, San Jose, San Diego, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Puerto Rico, Austin, Houston, Dallas, Detroit, Chicago, Boston, Baltimore and Washington D.C. and expanded to all major metropolitan markets by the end of 2006. As of early 2009, AT&T; Mobility has completed its upgrade of the 3G network to HSUPA, and will begin a new round of upgrades to the HSPA+ standard.

Future networks

AT&T; Mobility, Verizon Wireless, and most other mobile phone companies (Sprint being the sole US network to be migrating to the competing WiMAX standard) have chosen to build their new "4G" networks, with "Long Term Evolution" or LTE technology. Long Term Evolution LTE is the next step from 3G/WCDMA & HSPA for many already on the GSM technology curve, including AT&T.; This new radio access technology will be optimized to deliver very fast data rates of up to 100 Mbit/s downlink and 50 Mbit/s uplink (peak rates). AT&T; Networks will be throttling down the speeds to ensure all customers will be able to use LTE efficiently. Speeds are expected to be actually 6 Mbit/s to 8 Mbit/s with the exception of around 20 Mbit/s (Peak Rate), however this will change in time.

Designed to be backwards-compatible with GSM and HSPA, LTE incorporates Multiple In Multiple Out (MIMO) in combination with Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) in the downlink and Single Carrier FDMA in the uplink to provide high levels of spectral efficiency and end user data rates exceeding 100 Mbit/s, coupled with major improvements in capacity and reductions in latency. LTE will support channel bandwidths from 1.25 MHz to 20 MHz and both FDD and TDD operation. MetroPCS has activated the first LTE network, which is fully operational. AT&T; Mobility has not set an official date to begin building their LTE network. Depending on the amount of spectrum the carrier deploys it is expected AT&T; will deploy 10 MHz = 70 Mbit/s.

AT&T; has noted that they will begin their upgrade to HSPA 14.4 as a part of their effort to enhance their 3G wireless network as well as the transition to LTE. AT&T; has stated that their upgrades will be complete at the end of 2010 after backhaul connections leading from cell sites to AT&T; switching facilities . In addition, AT&T; has stated that their LTE network will be completed by year end 2013.

"Cingular is now The New AT&T;"

On November 20, 2005, Ed Whitacre, then CEO of the newly merged SBC/AT&T;, announced plans to market Cingular's service under the AT&T; brand. BellSouth spokesman Jeff Battcher countered that the terms of the joint venture allow either party to sell the service under another name, and that he believes they will be using the brand to market to business customers. Cingular president Stan Sigman concurred with BellSouth's position, indicating that the Cingular brand would continue but be sold under the AT&T; brand where offered in packages with other AT&T; services, such as data and wireline telephony.

However, AT&T;, Inc. announced on March 5, 2006 that it would acquire BellSouth. The acquisition was finalized on December 29, 2006 when the FCC gave its final approval. According to AT&T;, the company began the rebranding of Cingular Wireless to "AT&T;".

On January 12, 2007 AT&T; announced a major rebranding transition campaign to transition Cingular to the new AT&T; ("in February 2009 "new" was removed). The former Cingular stores, after being rebranded to AT&T;, sold all AT&T; products and services: wireless, landline, Internet, U-Verse, and more.

Cingular to AT&T; Rebranding Transition:

On January 14, 2007, AT&T; launched the transition of the Cingular brand to AT&T; in television advertising and customer communications, by creating the "Cingular is now The New AT&T;" logo.

On April 15, 2007, AT&T; Mobility began to introduce new AT&T; branded mobile phones and devices. The alpha tag (portion of phone's screen which displays the name of the network on which the phone is connected) on new phone activations also started reading "AT&T;".

Around May 11, 2007, Cingular's name was replaced with "AT&T;" in most advertisements.

On May 19, 2007, the AT&T; logo replaced the Cingular logo on the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series car it sponsors, owned by Richard Childress Racing and driven by Jeff Burton. (But it was soon removed; see below for details.)

On May 24, 2007, Palm, Inc. issued an update for Cingular-branded Treo 680 smartphones that, among other things, updated the phone's branding (startup and shutdown screens, wallpaper backgrounds) from Cingular to AT&T.;

As of May 31, 2007, the former cingular.com website redirects to wireless.att.com and no longer features any Cingular logos whatsoever.

In June 2007, customer service phone lines started being answered "Thank you for calling The New AT&T;, about your wireless service." Additionally, all new SIM cards are branded with the AT&T; logo.

By June 16, 2007, most of the phones on the company's network displayed AT&T; as the carrier instead of Cingular.

By early 2009, AT&T; had dropped "The New" part of its brand from all advertising and communications. Customer service phone lines are answered "Thank you for calling AT&T.;"

As of August 2011, www.cingular.com can still be used to access AT&T;'s website.

Acquisition of Dobson Communications

On November 15, 2007, AT&T; completed its acquisition of Dobson Communications. Dobson marketed the Cellular One brand in rural and suburban locations in various areas of the United States, including Alaska. AT&T; bought Dobson for $13 per share, as well as assuming the regional carrier's debt, which cost the nation's largest carrier about $5.1 billion total. The U.S. Justice Department had ordered AT&T; Inc. to sell assets in five U.S. states to complete its $2.8 billion Dobson Communications Corp. takeover. The department ordered AT&T; to divest certain cell-phone assets in Kentucky, Oklahoma, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Texas where AT&T; and Dobson are most competitive. At the time, AT&T; was the largest U.S. cell-phone provider, with more than 81 million subscribers in 50 states. Dobson's Cellular One was the ninth largest, with 1.7 million subscribers in 17 states. Dobson had been an AT&T; roaming partner since 1990, and the acquisition is expected to bring growth to Dobson's current markets. The purchase allowed AT&T; to operate in the more rural areas of the United States including Alaska & West Virginia.

Acquisition of Centennial Communications

On November 7, 2008, AT&T; announced its plans to acquire Centennial Wireless for $944 million. AT&T; said that the acquisition would provide customers with better coverage in the Southeast, Midwest, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. The deal will also give AT&T; more highly-coveted 850 MHz spectrum in the current Centennial Wireless coverage area. In addition, Centennial also provides switched voice and high-capacity data and Internet Protocol solutions for business customers in Puerto Rico. The transaction will give AT&T; a wired network presence in Puerto Rico and will allow the company to better serve its multinational business customers with a presence in this U.S. territory. AT&T; will gain Centennial's 893,000 subscribers after divestiture requirements. The deal was finalized on November 6, 2009.

Acquisition of T-Mobile USA

On March 20, 2011, AT&T; and Deutsche Telekom announced that AT&T; had agreed to acquire T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom in a deal estimated to be worth $39 billion in cash and stock. AT&T; said the deal is expected to close in 12 months and is subject to regulatory approval. As of June 2011, it is being examined by the FCC. On August 31, 2011, the United States Department of Justice formally announced that it had filed a lawsuit to block the merger.

Marketing

"Fewest dropped calls"

During the first quarter of 2006, Telephia reported that during an extensive nationwide test of major wireless carriers in 350 metropolitan markets around the country, Cingular dropped the fewest number of calls across the country. Cingular in turn began aggressively advertising the "Allover Network", citing Telephia as "the leading independent research company." Telephia's report was in stark contrast to the Consumers Union publication, Consumer Reports, based on a survey of 50,000 of its members in 18 cities, which criticized Cingular for static and dropped calls. Furthermore, J.D. Power and Associates consistently ranked Cingular at or near the bottom of every geographical region in its 2006 Wireless Call Quality Study, which is based on a smaller survey of 23,000 wireless users. This campaign had to come to an abrupt end.

Telephia, which tests wireless networks by making over 6 million calls per year in what it claims is the world's largest wireless network test program, initially refused to provide details on its study, and a spokesman for the company has said, according to the Boston Globe, that "Cingular shouldn't have even mentioned the company's name to a reporter." The research company later stated that Cingular did indeed have a "statistically-significant lower dropped-call rate than the competition across some market/time period groupings", but that Telephia had "no knowledge of the specific methodology (markets, time periods or statistical thresholds) that Cingular used for its 'lowest dropped call' claim." While AT&T; has abandoned its verbal claim of "The Fewest Dropped Calls" in its commercials, it continues to show situations where two persons are speaking with each other on their phones, and one of the users' call drops. AT&T; now states "We are still continuing to run ads that emphasize the importance of not dropping calls. That campaign is continuing.

iPhone

On June 29, 2007 the Apple iPhone was introduced to the U.S. market, which made AT&T; the exclusive carrier for the device within the United States until February 10, 2011, when the iPhone 4 was launched on the Verizon network.

Teething problems with AT&T;'s billing process emerged soon after the iPhone's release, as early adopters started receiving exceptionally detailed monthly telephone bills with one of the most notable being the 300-page iPhone bill that was featured in an online video by blogger Justine Ezarik.

Apple launched the iPhone 3G with AT&T; on July 11, 2008. Although specific AT&T; sales numbers are unavailable, Apple announced that over 1 million iPhone 3G devices were sold during the first three days – in contrast, according to Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, “It took 74 days to sell the first one million original iPhones." In August 2008, Best Buy announced that it would begin selling the iPhone 3G for use on the AT&T; network. In September 2008, AT&T; announced that it would also sell the iPhone 3G in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.

In the United States, the iPhone 3G is available for purchase with or without an AT&T; contract, as most big box retailers, like Best Buy, will gladly sell it sans contract. AT&T; is rumored to have heavily subsidized the iPhone's price to reach a broader spectrum of consumers.

On December 27, 2009 reports began to surface that AT&T; had suspended online sales of the iPhone. Spokesman Fletcher Cook said that the phone company periodically "modifies" its distribution channels, but had no further comment on the suspension of sales in the New York City area. One AT&T; employee incorrectly stated that, "New York wasn't ready for the iPhone," and that it lacked a sufficient number of cell towers to meet the heavy data demands imposed upon the network by iPhone users. Sales of the popular iPhone resumed December 30, 2009. This incident has revived speculation that AT&T;'s wireless network is not up to the demands of the current generation of 3G smartphones. The official AT&T; statement is that a large amount of fraudulent activity caused the withdrawal of sales in the area.

The latest version of the iPhone is called the iPhone 4. It was released June 24, 2010. It brought a number of new features like an upgraded camera, flash, a new exterior design, upgraded screen, and the new version of Apple's software. According to Apple, over 1.7 million iPhone 4s were sold in the first few days, which is the most out of any phone ever sold. These sales propelled AT&T; to strong Q2 results.

Android-based smart phones

On February 18, 2010, AT&T; announced that on March 7, 2010 it would introduce its first smart phone based on Google's Android operating system, the Motorola Backflip. On March 22, 2010, AT&T; announced that its second Android handset would be the Dell Aero, a revised version of the Dell Mini 3. However, the second Android phone AT&T; released was the HTC Aria which was announced on June 14, 2010 and released on June 20, 2010. The Samsung Captivate, which is part of the Galaxy S family, was released on AT&T;'s network on July 18, 2010. In addition to devices released on AT&T; were a line of handsets manufactured by Motorola. The Motorola Flipout, followed by the Motorola Flipside and the Motorola Bravo all run Android 2.1 and were all released Q4 2010. Three new 4G Android devices were announced for release within the first and second quarter of the fiscal year 2011 including the Motorola Atrix 4G, the HTC Inspire 4G, and the Samsung Infuse 4G. HTC Inspire 4G being the first, proceeded by the Motorola Atrix 4G are currently available through AT&T;'s 4G network. These three devices are all running Android 2.2 (froyo) and are expected to be upgraded to Android 2.3 gingerbread later in the year along with an update to 'enable' 4G uploads. Unlike other US networks with Android-based phones, AT&T; did not allow non-Market Apps to be installed. However on May 16th, 2011 AT&T; announced that some current and future Android devices will come with an option to allow the installation of unofficial applications.

webOS-based smart phones

On January 6, 2010, Ralph de la Vega, CEO of AT&T; Mobility announced during the AT&T; Developer summit @ CES 2010 that AT&T; will have 2 webOS devices in the first half of 2010. Silence by both Palm & AT&T; after the event put this announcement in a limbo, although Palm later cleared the air by issuing a press release on March 22 that AT&T; will showcase the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus, updated versions of the Palm Pre & Pixi with better memory and updated hardware at CTIA Wireless. The announced pricing for these devices is $149.99 and $49.99, respectively, with a two-year service agreement and after a $100 mail-in rebate. They were released on May 16, 2010. These will be the first webOS devices on AT&T; and thereby bring Palm's webOS devices to Sprint, Verizon, and AT&T.;

Microsoft Windows Phone 7

On November 8, 2010, AT&T; and Microsoft released three Windows Phone 7s. One is made by HTC known as the HTC Surround. It is known for having a slide out Dolby-Surround sound speaker. One is made by Samsung known as the Focus. The Focus includes a Super-amoled screen and is very similar to the Galaxy S line also made by Samsung. And the last is the LG Quantum which is known for having a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. All phones include a 5-mp camera with flash, a display with WVGA (800x480) resolution, and a 1 GHz Snapdragon processor. In 2011, HTC released its latest phone called the HTC HD7S. It has an 8 megapixel camera with dual flash, a 4.3 screen, and runs HTC Sense. It also has a stand which is he metal piece surrounding the camera, making it one of possibly 4 of the HTC line-up, the others being the HTC EVO, the Surround, and the HD7.

Phones offered

Calling plans and features

AT&T; Mobility sells a variety of wireless services, including individual plans, family plans, and GoPhone (prepaid) plans.

Mobile to Mobile

All postpaid monthly rate plans (and most prepaid plans) include unlimited minutes for calls to or from any of AT&T;'s wireless subscribers. Night & weekend minutes were deducted before unlimited M2M minutes until March 2010, in which AT&T; stated on wireless bills that M2M minutes would no longer deplete N/W minutes on plans without unlimited N/W minutes. As of November 2009, all postpaid voice plans (except for the "Nation 450" ) include unlimited night & weekend usage. If all N&W; voice minutes are used, calls placed to non-AT&T; wireless customers are deducted from the monthly package of anytime minutes . Any unused "anytime" minutes rollover to the next month, and expire after 12 months if not used.

AT&T; Unity

AT&T; Unity is a service offered for users of landline and wireless AT&T; service. It provides free unlimited calling to users of AT&T; landline and wireless services. AT&T; Unity customers also receive "Rollover" minutes and night and unlimited weekend minutes. (As of early 2010 "AT&T; Unity" is no longer offered, although it is still supported for existing customers who have it.)

Mobile phone insurance

AT&T; Mobility allows its customers to have mobile phone insurance in case of loss or accidental damage. Asurion is the administrator of the insurance program from AT&T.; All phones are covered under the mobile phone insurance plan except AT&T; GoPhones. Customers are required to pay a deductible for each time they make an insurance claim, and are only allowed two claims per 12-month period.

As of July 17, 2011 AT&T; and Asurion announced that the Apple iPhone will be insurable with their Mobile Protection Pack service.

Slogans

"Your world. Delivered" (2006-1st quarter of 2010)

"Rethink possible" (2010–present.)

Controversies

Cingular/AT&T; NASCAR sponsorship controversy

Cingular Wireless began its sponsorship of the #31 Chevrolet, owned by Richard Childress Racing, in the NASCAR Winston Cup Series in 2002. Two years later, when Nextel Communications (now Sprint Nextel) purchased the naming rights to NASCAR's top division (rebranding the division as the Nextel Cup, and later the Sprint Cup), Cingular and Alltel, sponsor of the #12 Dodge (owned by Penske Racing and driven by Ryan Newman), were allowed to stay as sponsors under a grandfather clause. In early 2007, following its purchase by AT&T;, Cingular began a re-branding effort to the AT&T; Mobility brand. NASCAR quickly claimed that a clause in their contract with Sprint Nextel would not allow Cingular to change either the name or brand advertised on the #31 car.

After trying and failing to persuade NASCAR to approve the addition of the AT&T; globe logo to the rear of the car, AT&T; filed a lawsuit against NASCAR on March 16, 2007. On May 18, AT&T; won a preliminary injunction in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia in Atlanta and, following a failed emergency motion for a stay by NASCAR on May 19, re-branded the #31 car, now driven by Jeff Burton, in time for the Nextel All-Star Challenge that evening. NASCAR was later granted an appeal to be heard on August 2.

On June 17, NASCAR announced it had filed a US$100 million dollar lawsuit against AT&T; and would like AT&T; and all other telecommunications companies out of the sport in 2008.

On August 13, a ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit cleared the way for NASCAR to prevent AT&T; Inc. from featuring its logo on the car. The 11th Circuit threw out a lower court's ruling that prevented NASCAR from stopping AT&T;'s plans. The appeals court remanded the case to the district court.

At first practice for the Sharpie 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway on August 24, the #31 car was colored orange and black, but was bare; that is, no primary sponsor (but associate sponsors appeared) were on the car, similar to Formula One cars run in races where tobacco advertising was prohibited. The pit crew wore grey Richard Childress Racing shirts and Burton had a plain orange fire suit with associate sponsors. The car which carried a "subliminal advertising" scheme arrived in a black hauler with only the number 31 on the side. NASCAR officials said the car would not have made it through inspection with the AT&T; logos. During that weekend, AT&T; claimed that two alternate paint schemes proposed by AT&T;—one advertising its "go phone" and another with the old Cingular slogan "more bars in more places" that AT&T; recently brought back—were rejected by NASCAR. The Go Phone scheme had been used in the past. NASCAR later denied these claims.

The car remained bare on race night on August 25, although ESPN aired the AT&T; logo during shots from its in-car camera. Fox Sports had done so earlier in the dispute, with the words "Cingular is the new AT&T;" on-screen during these shots.

On September 7, 2007, a settlement was reached where AT&T; Mobility could remain on the #31 car until the end of 2008, but the associate sponsorship of the #29 Nationwide Series Holiday Inn Chevrolets not affected because they are in lower series.

Richard Childress Racing announced the AT&T; Mobility sponsorship will move to Grand American Road Racing Association sportscar racing in 2009 with the sponsorship of the Childress-Howard Motorsports #4 AT&T; Pontiac Daytona Prototype sportscar. Childress is a part-owner of this team.

Competitors

AT&T; is the second largest mobile carrier in the United States, based on customer totals. AT&T;'s competitors are (from largest to smallest):

Verizon

Sprint

T-Mobile USA

TracFone Wireless

MetroPCS

U.S. Cellular

Cricket

Claro in Puerto Rico

If the planned acquisition of T-Mobile USA is completed, AT&T; will be the largest network provider in the U.S., with 129.2 million subscribers, overtaking Verizon Wireless with 101.1 million subscribers.

References

External links

AT&T; Mobility

AT&T; Mobility LLC at Google Finance

AT&T; Mobility LLC at Hoover's

AT&T; Mobility LLC at Yahoo! Finance

Category:AT&T; Category:Companies based in Atlanta, Georgia Category:Companies established in 2000 Category:Mobile phone companies of the United States

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