Biggering Department: Welcome to the New, New AT&T

Yesterday, AT&T Inc. announced that it intends to acquire BellSouth Corp. This will likely be OK’ed by the FTC and I will now have to deal with the beast for my landline, DSL, and cell phone as well.

The price tag? $67 billion in stock making it one of the largest telecom deals in history. The new mega-company, — which will include cellular provider Cingular — will have 317,000 employees, 70.9 million local land lines, 54.1 million cell phone subscribers and 9.9 million broadband Internet users. Tell me how this will be good for consumers? I predict that customer service will hit a new, all-time low and I shudder at the thought of having to deal with the “new AT&T powered by SBC underpinned by BellSouth connected by Cingular.”