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Speaker 1: Welcome to tex Stuff, a production from my Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,

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Speaker 1: John in Strickland. I'm an executive producer with iHeart Radio

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Speaker 1: and a love of all things tech, and it is

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Speaker 1: time to conclude our classic episode Trifecta about A T

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Speaker 1: and T. Yes, we're about to listen to the A

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Speaker 1: T and T Story, Part three, which originally published back

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Speaker 1: on November eleventh, two thousand thirteen. If you have not

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Speaker 1: listened to parts one and two, those published the previous

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Speaker 1: two fridays, so you can check those out, and let's

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Speaker 1: check back in with two thousand thirteen tech Stuff. The

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Speaker 1: deal was that A T. T Was getting out the

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Speaker 1: local telephone business and concentrating solely on on providing service

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Speaker 1: for a long distance as well as getting into the

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Speaker 1: burgeoning computer industry, right, which would be very important or

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Speaker 1: will be very important for this current episode that we

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Speaker 1: are about to embark ponds. This is uh. I titled

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Speaker 1: this in my notes as part three, getting to the

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Speaker 1: bit that we're in now because I'm great at titles.

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Speaker 1: So that brings us up to three. When A T.

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Speaker 1: T opens the first commercial cellular telephone system in the

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Speaker 1: telephone system. That was an interesting embossis on that salable

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Speaker 1: in the United States in Chicago under Ameritech, which was

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Speaker 1: soon to be divested from A T and T according

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Speaker 1: to those rules that we talked about laid down in

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Speaker 1: the nine settlement of the antitrust lawsuit. But at that

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Speaker 1: time in Merritech was still under A T and T

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Speaker 1: because again, it takes time to actually act upon these

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Speaker 1: these judgments. So here we have the first cellular telephone

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Speaker 1: system for commercial use, and uh yeah, the cellular approach

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Speaker 1: was uh something that really made mobile telephones possible because

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Speaker 1: if you remember from our last episode, A T and

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Speaker 1: T had created mobile phones, but they would connect to

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Speaker 1: a specific radio antenna and you had to be within

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Speaker 1: range to use it, and if you moved out of change,

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Speaker 1: that was it. Your call would just end. Um. Cellular

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Speaker 1: telephones had a bunch of towers that will allow you

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Speaker 1: to move within an out of range of various towers.

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Speaker 1: There's kind of a handshake and electrying to handshake involved

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Speaker 1: where you would continue to get service even as you

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Speaker 1: moved out of one tower's operating area into another. And

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Speaker 1: all of this technology was thanks to advancements that came

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Speaker 1: out of a T and T Labs. Basically the it's

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Speaker 1: it's that that handshake that Jonathan is is talking about.

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Speaker 1: You know, let's let's the cells automatically transfer call from

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Speaker 1: one tower to the next as as a caller moves

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Speaker 1: through them. And Yep, that came out of what was

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Speaker 1: formerly or I guess currently at that very moment, still

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Speaker 1: Bell Labs, but would very soon become a T and

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Speaker 1: T Labs. Yeah. So it's um one of those one

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Speaker 1: of those crazy developments that gives us the ability to

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Speaker 1: use technology the way we do today. Just imagine if

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Speaker 1: we had not come up with that, if a T

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Speaker 1: and T and not come up with it, let's say that,

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Speaker 1: you know, it had been delayed several years, we'd be

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Speaker 1: in a very different world right now. So it was

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Speaker 1: pretty amazing stuff that that same year, a researcher at

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Speaker 1: A T and T named Beyond strew Strip, which I'm

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Speaker 1: sure I mispronounced his name term. I did not look

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Speaker 1: it up. I didn't even write his name in my

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Speaker 1: notes because I was unwilling to try to pronounce it.

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Speaker 1: He debuted C plus plus. Yeah, yeah it was. It

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Speaker 1: was so much better than C. It got two pluses.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, C plus plus is an object oriented programming

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Speaker 1: language that came out of the Bell Labs development laboratory.

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Speaker 1: So that's a little more redundant. In January one four,

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Speaker 1: it's early, y'all. So in January one, that's when Bell

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Speaker 1: system ceases to be Yes, this is the official end

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Speaker 1: of everything that that needed to end according to those

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Speaker 1: agreements from right. So now we've gotten the boy where

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Speaker 1: A T and T is divested of those other companies

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Speaker 1: and is its own entity. Uh. It retains long distance

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Speaker 1: operations as well as the R and D labs and manufacturing,

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Speaker 1: so all of that belongs under the umbrella of A

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Speaker 1: T and T. And then all that local services handled

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Speaker 1: by those seven divested regional and that year will access

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Speaker 1: carrier selection begins, which is a ruling by the FCC

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Speaker 1: said that all telephone customers should be given a choice

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Speaker 1: as to which long distance company they would use when

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Speaker 1: dialing long distance numbers. So, uh that you know, now,

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Speaker 1: the regional operating companies, even though they used to be

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Speaker 1: part of A T and T, could not give a

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Speaker 1: T and T preferential treatment. They could not say, this

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Speaker 1: is the company that you have to use if you're

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Speaker 1: going to make long distance they had to give you

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Speaker 1: open access to all competitors. So A T and T

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Speaker 1: at that time also begins to lower long distance rates.

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Speaker 1: Um and they said that. They said that it was

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Speaker 1: improvements in their infrastructure that lowered costs and that allowed

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Speaker 1: them to lower the rates. Really, what I think was

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Speaker 1: happening was that because they had I mean, A T.

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Speaker 1: T went from having nearly fifty billion in assets before

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Speaker 1: the breakup to thirty four billion after after this mob

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Speaker 1: Bel to Baby Bell breakup, which is a seventy s

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Speaker 1: drop an asset value, which is pretty alarming when you're

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Speaker 1: a giant company. Um and so, so competitors at the time,

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Speaker 1: like Sprint and m c I were pricing to undersell

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Speaker 1: A T and T pretty seriously. You guys might remember

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Speaker 1: some of the commercials that were coming out around that

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Speaker 1: time of just the crazy backbiting price war stuff that

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Speaker 1: was going on. And remember, you know, m c I

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Speaker 1: was the company that had led the charge against A

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Speaker 1: T and T back in the seventies that eventually evolved

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Speaker 1: into that antitrust lawsuit. So this is you know, A T.

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Speaker 1: T said that it's because of improvements and service, but

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Speaker 1: in reality, I think we can say that This was

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Speaker 1: so that they could remain competitive now that it was

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Speaker 1: more of a level playing ground in the long distance space,

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Speaker 1: and if they didn't lower their prices then they had

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Speaker 1: a real risk of losing their customers. The you know,

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Speaker 1: these these two competitors and and others as well, would

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Speaker 1: would take huge gnawing bites out of A T and

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Speaker 1: T over the next several years. But um but a

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Speaker 1: T nonetheless would see a six increase in long distance

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Speaker 1: calling between now and now being over the next fifteen years.

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Speaker 1: So you know, long distance was still a very major

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Speaker 1: thing because wireless didn't exist. We then really moved on

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Speaker 1: to a post long distance world. I can't remember the

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Speaker 1: last time I was charged for a long distance call

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Speaker 1: that wasn't, say, an international call. It was about two

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Speaker 1: thousand one for me. Wow, So did everyone just move

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Speaker 1: near you? Or was that when things changed? That's when

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Speaker 1: I got a cell phone? Oh? Got you? All right? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's about when I did too, I'm sure, I think

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Speaker 1: maybe a little earlier. It's hard for me to remember

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Speaker 1: years ago by so quickly. Alright, So between four and

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Speaker 1: nothing happened. Actually, I just didn't find anything that I

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Speaker 1: thought was stuff happened. I just didn't find anything I

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Speaker 1: found particularly noteworthy to add in my notes. Me neither,

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Speaker 1: So let's go to excellent. That's when A T and

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Speaker 1: T lays down the tapped eight, the T A T eight,

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Speaker 1: which was another transatlantic telephone cable. This one made a

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Speaker 1: fiber optics Yeah, so across the Atlantic obviously, and could

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Speaker 1: carry ten times the number of calls the earlier copper

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Speaker 1: cable could handle. Now remember the originally we were talking about,

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Speaker 1: you know, copper cable able to handle thirty or forty

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Speaker 1: calls at most. The earliest one is only able to

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Speaker 1: handle one time. By this time, so you think, oh,

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Speaker 1: ten times the number, why is it like so it's

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Speaker 1: a hundred calls. No, by this time they had improved

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Speaker 1: the technology significantly. We're talking forty thousand simultaneous calls. So

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Speaker 1: when all of your buddies want to call all of uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, each other across the pond. This is what

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Speaker 1: makes it possible without getting a signal saying sorry, all

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Speaker 1: lines are busy. Uh in T Labs began working on

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Speaker 1: h D t v UM, specifically on the kind of

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Speaker 1: high speed signal processing problems that arise when a computer

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Speaker 1: needs to you know, receive de code and display a

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Speaker 1: large amount of data in real time. But this is

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Speaker 1: pretty impressive for those of you who are HDTV enthusiasts.

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Speaker 1: Here in the United States, HDTV had a fairly late start.

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Speaker 1: It got earlier start in Japan, uh and it took

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Speaker 1: a while for there to be an agreed upon set

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Speaker 1: of standards guiding HDTV because obviously you need to be

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Speaker 1: able to have all the different players involved working on

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Speaker 1: those same set standards. The delivery of the quality of

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Speaker 1: the signal needs to be correct. The manufacturers need to

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Speaker 1: be working on a similar approach. So this was very

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Speaker 1: early on. Then A T and T was looking at

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Speaker 1: this is saying, this is going to be a thing.

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Speaker 1: It's not a thing now, It's probably not gonna be

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Speaker 1: a thing for maybe ten years, but we need to

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Speaker 1: work on it now. It would also turn out to

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Speaker 1: be pretty forward thinking for them, because they would wind

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Speaker 1: up getting pretty seriously into the cable industry in just

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Speaker 1: another few years. Right forward thinking man. For some reason,

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Speaker 1: I love that phrase. Bell Labs also was working at

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Speaker 1: that time on a speech actuated manipulator also known as

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Speaker 1: SAM oh. Right, yeah, and that that would that would

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Speaker 1: become kind of important another couple of years as well. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's kind of neat. This was like an early pre

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Speaker 1: to trying to create a robot that could respond to

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Speaker 1: natural language commands, so things like turn left or lower

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Speaker 1: your arm, that kind of thing. Uh, And it was

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Speaker 1: just really the early days sort of a proof of

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Speaker 1: concept to create robots that could do. This also meant

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Speaker 1: that they were working very hard on improving just natural

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Speaker 1: language recognition, which is that's incredibly difficult. It's hard to

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Speaker 1: teach a computer that, you know, we can say the

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Speaker 1: same command a hundred different ways. For the computer to

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Speaker 1: be able to interpret all one hundred of those variations

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Speaker 1: as a single command and differentiate it from every other

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Speaker 1: command is phenomenal. Yeah, especially in English, which is pretty

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Speaker 1: messy in really wonderful ways. When we start adding an

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Speaker 1: idiom that's really like wave it around like you just

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Speaker 1: don't care that robot is going to have some trouble.

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Speaker 1: First of all, it doesn't care. Robots don't care. They

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Speaker 1: don't that robot to pretend to care. Yeah, that's about

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Speaker 1: as good as we can get. I mean it's yeah,

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Speaker 1: I've known some people that way too, So I'm not

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Speaker 1: going to speak down to romost too much. Um. Now

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Speaker 1: moving on to nine one, that's when A T and

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Speaker 1: T acquired in CR Corporation, which is a computer manufacturing company.

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Speaker 1: I think with this they were really hoping to start

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Speaker 1: hopping that that software hardware divide or or I guess

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Speaker 1: it's the networking hardware divide more so they again we're

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Speaker 1: looking forward to too yeah, to really get in that

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Speaker 1: because I mean that that was one of the things

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Speaker 1: that they were allowed to do now after that nineteen

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Speaker 1: two judgment. Uh, and this was kind of a real

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Speaker 1: serious move into that space. UM. In two, they unveiled

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Speaker 1: the Voice English Spanish Translator or VEST, which was first

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Speaker 1: developed back in nine but it was first unveiled in

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Speaker 1: ninety two, so they're still working on those improvements to

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Speaker 1: voice technology. He could recognize about four hundred fifty words

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Speaker 1: and around a billion different combinations. And the way it

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Speaker 1: would work is that you would speak into the microphone

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Speaker 1: the saw off where would first attempt to identify what

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Speaker 1: language you are speaking, either English or Spanish. At that point,

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Speaker 1: when it had identified the language, it would then translate

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Speaker 1: what you were saying into the other language, so English

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Speaker 1: Spanish or Spanish to English via text. What it would

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Speaker 1: do is break down your sentences into little basic component

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Speaker 1: parts and then translate those component parts, which anyone who

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Speaker 1: has done any translation knows is not a you know,

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Speaker 1: full proof way of translating, because sometimes if you break,

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Speaker 1: can involve multiple parts of a sentence. Again, especially in

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Speaker 1: English where your ward order is not perhaps as structured

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Speaker 1: as it might be in other languages. I mean, I

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Speaker 1: would love to see this in action, just because it

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Speaker 1: again is tackling one of those fundamentally difficult problems for

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Speaker 1: human computer interaction. A T and T merged with maccaw

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Speaker 1: Cellular Communications Incorporated, which at that time was the largest

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Speaker 1: provider of cellular service in the United States. So that

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Speaker 1: acquisition eventually means the the entity that was McCaw Cellular

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Speaker 1: Communications becomes A T T Wireless along with another company

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Speaker 1: will mention in a bit. But that same year A

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Speaker 1: ten T also introduced the Model seventy video phone. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that was kind of a video teleconferencing hardware. And you

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Speaker 1: know that they had had such rousing lack of success

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Speaker 1: with their picture phone that that but but but they

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Speaker 1: and an work environment and be on a computer than

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Speaker 1: they were on a phone. Yeah, so this was allowing

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Speaker 1: simultaneous video transmission, so that it kind of predecessor to

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Speaker 1: the video software we used today for things like Skype

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Speaker 1: or other Google hangouts, those kind of video hangout things.

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Speaker 1: It also would allow some limited use of letting, like

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Speaker 1: the person who's calling you manipulate files so you can

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Speaker 1: open the files within it and have so it's kind

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Speaker 1: of like a video conferencing system very early on. So

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Speaker 1: pretty impressive considering. Yeah, I mean, you know, that's we're

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Speaker 1: of the World Wide Web. Keep in mind out that

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Speaker 1: that really hadn't even launched till nine two. So seeing

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Speaker 1: some video communication stuff in ninety three was exciting. You know,

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Speaker 1: I can remember the first time I ever saw any

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Speaker 1: kind of video communication. I remember exactly what I was doing.

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Speaker 1: What what were you doing? I was at the Experimental

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Speaker 1: Prototype Community of Tomorrow or EPCUT as it is called now,

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Speaker 1: it's no longer known as its full name. So they

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Speaker 1: used to have these consoles mounted on columns where you

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Speaker 1: could walk up to the consoles. Yeah, hellttle touchscreen interface.

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Speaker 1: You press a button and then you would get greeted

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Speaker 1: by a cast member who would ask what what you needed,

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Speaker 1: and you could ask them anything that had to do

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Speaker 1: with the parks. Eventually you could do things like even

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Speaker 1: make uh dining reservations. That way, you could say I

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Speaker 1: would like to eat at Mexico at noon, and they

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Speaker 1: would they would make that Mexico being the pavilion in

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Speaker 1: the World Showcase. It wouldn't actually to me now we

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Speaker 1: still don't have that technology. I'm waiting on it. I wouldn't.

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Speaker 1: I wouldn't put it past Disney to just have that

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Speaker 1: in the back pocket. But yeah, but it must have

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Speaker 1: been right around this same time, all right, right in

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Speaker 1: the early nineties, right, speaking of names no longer meaning

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Speaker 1: that long drawn out thing that they used to mean

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Speaker 1: in that's when A T. T legally changed their name

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Speaker 1: from the American Telephone and Telegraph Corporation to just a T.

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Speaker 1: T corp Or corporation. I mean the corporation stays the same, yeah,

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Speaker 1: but it was just a T and T. So now

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Speaker 1: it's as telegraphs were no longer a thing, kind of

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Speaker 1: like when you look at certain names that used to

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Speaker 1: mean one thing, now it's just the initials. So you

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Speaker 1: might ask, like, what does AMC mean? And it used

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Speaker 1: to me in American movie classics. Now it's just a

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Speaker 1: m C. That's just the name, so same sort of thing.

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Speaker 1: So moving up to that's when A T and T

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Speaker 1: restructures into three separate companies. So one of them is

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Speaker 1: a T and T. That's the services company. It's the

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Speaker 1: one that we all know and are familiar with. The

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Speaker 1: second one becomes Lucent Technologies. Now that is a products

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Speaker 1: and systems company. Ah, it's really kind of a manufacturing

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Speaker 1: company for certain types of electronics. And the third is

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Speaker 1: a computer company that returns to the NCR name. You know,

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Speaker 1: they purchased NCR just a few years earlier and loosen NCR.

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Speaker 1: Eventually both spin off as their own companies. Uh the

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Speaker 1: following year. In fact, we got a little bit more

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Speaker 1: we want to say about the following year. But before

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Speaker 1: we do that, let's take a quick break to thank

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Speaker 1: our sponsor. You've probably tried Hulu dot com. Now with

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Speaker 1: to Hulu Plus dot Com Forward slash Tech. Now. One

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Speaker 1: show that I recommend checking out at least the first

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Speaker 1: season anyway, is Heroes. It was one of those takes

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Speaker 1: on television of creating a superhero show if superheroes were

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Speaker 1: somehow grounded in our real world. And that first season

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Speaker 1: has a lot going for it that I really enjoyed,

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Speaker 1: and uh, that's something that I will watch, you know,

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Speaker 1: I'll just do a marathon session, sit down and just

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Speaker 1: watch episode after episode, and it really becomes a challenge

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Speaker 1: to figure out when I'm going to turn it off,

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Speaker 1: which is a great problem to have. Go check it out. Alright,

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Speaker 1: so it's back to nine six. That's when the Telecommunications

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Speaker 1: Act of nine becomes law. You know, I was going

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Speaker 1: to make a joke about how they wanted to call

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Speaker 1: the Telecommunications Act of nine the Telecommunications Act of but

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Speaker 1: it published in nineteen nine, and they thought I would

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Speaker 1: confuse everyone. But then I realized I made that joke

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Speaker 1: in the last episode. Well good, I'm glad that you're

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Speaker 1: growing as a host. Thanks. Yeah, it doesn't stop me

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Speaker 1: from making jokes. It just it just it just prompts

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Speaker 1: me to explain why I'm making the same joke twice.

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Speaker 1: I know, I'm I'm lame. It's okay, I've dealt with it. Okay.

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Speaker 1: So this so this Act was an FCC attempt to

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Speaker 1: to regulate the industry to promote greater competition. Right, yeah,

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Speaker 1: again it was Yeah, because again it was it was

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Speaker 1: a growing industry. This is another example of how technology

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Speaker 1: evolves faster than the legal system can necessarily handle. So

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Speaker 1: we get these big leaps in technology relatively speaking, and

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Speaker 1: then the legal system says, you know, this has outgrown

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Speaker 1: the parameters for what we had envisioned because the technology

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Speaker 1: can do more than what we what it used to

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Speaker 1: be able to. Right. Previously, you know, cable and telephones

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Speaker 1: and data had all been very separate, and this brought

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Speaker 1: them all under one umbrella. Right, So similar to how

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Speaker 1: we see cable companies that do both the transmission of

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Speaker 1: data and they provide some of that data as in

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Speaker 1: they create content that would also become you know, another

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Speaker 1: challenge that they were still struggling with today because you know,

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Speaker 1: it's it's getting very messy. If one person owns all

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Speaker 1: the roads but allows everybody to play on those roads,

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Speaker 1: net neutrality is maintained and everyone's happy. But if everyone

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Speaker 1: owns all the roads and also owns a lot of

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Speaker 1: the buses they go on those roads and then decides

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Speaker 1: to let those buses get the express lane and everyone

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Speaker 1: else gets the slow lane, that's when you start getting

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Speaker 1: the problems. So the Telecommunications Act was sort of a

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Speaker 1: predecessor to some of the Acts and some of the

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Speaker 1: proposed legislation that would follow to try and maintain net neutrality. Um.

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Speaker 1: And of course that's, like I said, that's a battle

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Speaker 1: that's still ongoing to this day. Absolutely. That's when A

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Speaker 1: T and T signs a merger agreement with t c I,

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Speaker 1: which was a cable company. Yeah. They were also working

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Speaker 1: at the time on converting their entire network from analog

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Speaker 1: to digital data delivery. So yeah, in nine if you

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Speaker 1: remember from our last podcast, this is actually when that

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Speaker 1: final electro mechanical switch was switched over to computer I switch.

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Speaker 1: I bet there was a big ceremony. I hope that

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Speaker 1: electro mechanical switches enjoying retirement. But A T. T also

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Speaker 1: went back to the consumer local telephone business because it

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Speaker 1: introduced a residential service in New York. So first time

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Speaker 1: A T and T gets into the local telephone service

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Speaker 1: since it had divested itself of those regional bell companies

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Speaker 1: back in two write Um. They also completed that merger

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Speaker 1: with t c I and started looking to acquire a

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Speaker 1: second cable company called Media one. Yeah, they're really serious

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Speaker 1: about now. And they also rolled out the largest DSL

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Speaker 1: initiative in the industry for broadband customers. I was never

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Speaker 1: a DSL customer. I was always a cable modem customer,

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Speaker 1: but I've got a lot of friends who used DSL

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Speaker 1: for both voice and data, and yeah, that was that

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Speaker 1: was a big deal back then. Oh sure. Well, at

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Speaker 1: the time, long distance revenue was decreasing for a T

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Speaker 1: and T at a rate about twenty each year due

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Speaker 1: to these these changes in the way that the world

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Speaker 1: was working, in the way that people were accessing information

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Speaker 1: and telecommunications, and uh so, you know, they were although

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Speaker 1: they were working and they had spent some hundred billion

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Speaker 1: dollars on acquiring these cable TV companies, they were still

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Speaker 1: pretty dependent on long distance as as a profit, and

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Speaker 1: so they were kind of they were kind of scared. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they had to look at other means of generating revenue

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Speaker 1: because with the the threat to long distance looming and

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Speaker 1: getting getting worse each year, they knew that if they

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Speaker 1: were to have any viability as a as a any

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Speaker 1: type of company, let alone a major, enormous company, they

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Speaker 1: had to get into new types of business. And so,

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Speaker 1: as you know, terror is a great motivator, as it

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Speaker 1: turns out, and they they really doubled down on the

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Speaker 1: broadband approach and it ended up paying off big time.

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Speaker 1: Also in that year in T and D started research

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Speaker 1: into something one of my favorite subjects because it's so

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Speaker 1: crazy and wonky, quantum computing. Yeah, so there's been all

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Speaker 1: over a T T Labs looking into quantum computers. Um.

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Speaker 1: We've mentioned quantum computers in earlier episodes of tech Stuff,

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Speaker 1: but just to let you guys know, they're crazy, y'all.

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Speaker 1: So your basic computer relies on binary uh computer language,

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Speaker 1: which are zeros and ones. Your quantum computer relies on

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Speaker 1: those are also known as bits. The quantum computer relies

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Speaker 1: on cubits. Now a cubit theoretically um, actually, I guess really,

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Speaker 1: because there have been quantum computers built, they just don't

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Speaker 1: last very long. A cubit can act in superposition, meaning

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Speaker 1: that it's both zero and one and all values in

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Speaker 1: between at the same time simultaneously. Jonathan from breaking in

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Speaker 1: to say, we will be back to talk more about

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Speaker 1: a T T in a moment, but first let's take

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Speaker 1: a quick break. So theoretically you can use a significantly

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Speaker 1: powerful quantum computer, and has to have a certain number

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Speaker 1: of cubits for this to be viable. But you can

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Speaker 1: use a powerful quantum computer to solve certain types of

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Speaker 1: problems much more quickly than you would with a classical computer.

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Speaker 1: Not all problems would be great in a quantum computer,

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Speaker 1: but if it's a problem, for example, trying to figure

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Speaker 1: out which two enormous prime numbers were multiplied together to

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Speaker 1: get this particular product, a quantum computer can do that

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Speaker 1: way faster than a classical computer. Classical computer might take

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Speaker 1: hundreds of years to solve a particularly difficult problem. A

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Speaker 1: quantum computer might do it in a in an hour.

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Speaker 1: And it's all because it's able to solve I'm oversimplifying,

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Speaker 1: but it's able to solve multiple versions of the problem

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Speaker 1: all at the same time, and then assigned probabilities to

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Speaker 1: which one is the correct answer. So A T and

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Speaker 1: T was looking into that as early as so two thousand.

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Speaker 1: Uh lall right, well, now they've got the acquisitions of

433
00:23:07,240 --> 00:23:09,399
Speaker 1: T c I and Media One, which makes A T

434
00:23:09,520 --> 00:23:13,240
Speaker 1: n T the largest cable company in the United States. Um,

435
00:23:13,240 --> 00:23:16,440
Speaker 1: the service is called a T and T Broadband, and

436
00:23:16,560 --> 00:23:20,360
Speaker 1: a T and T itself reorganizes again into three major companies.

437
00:23:20,600 --> 00:23:22,720
Speaker 1: So you've got a T and T, a T and

438
00:23:22,760 --> 00:23:26,040
Speaker 1: T wireless, and a T n T Broadband. And uh

439
00:23:26,400 --> 00:23:30,119
Speaker 1: that's also the year when data traffic overtakes voice traffic

440
00:23:30,160 --> 00:23:33,280
Speaker 1: on the A T and T network for the first time. UM.

441
00:23:33,280 --> 00:23:37,720
Speaker 1: Not surprising, but I'm sure now there's way more data

442
00:23:37,800 --> 00:23:41,040
Speaker 1: than voice. Has to be overwhelming at this point. Even

443
00:23:41,040 --> 00:23:44,280
Speaker 1: though these these acquisitions of TC and Media one were

444
00:23:44,320 --> 00:23:46,160
Speaker 1: really terrific for A T and T and moving them

445
00:23:46,240 --> 00:23:48,760
Speaker 1: in in a direction that the company thought was going

446
00:23:48,800 --> 00:23:50,840
Speaker 1: to be really great, that they spent over a hundred

447
00:23:50,920 --> 00:23:54,240
Speaker 1: billion on those acquisitions, and they had kind of gone

448
00:23:54,240 --> 00:23:56,800
Speaker 1: into debt in order to do so. Um. You know,

449
00:23:56,840 --> 00:23:59,399
Speaker 1: the company was in a little bit of trouble and

450
00:23:59,400 --> 00:24:02,600
Speaker 1: they were hoping by by separating out into these three

451
00:24:02,640 --> 00:24:04,560
Speaker 1: separate services that they were going to be able to

452
00:24:04,720 --> 00:24:08,679
Speaker 1: isolate that debt and also you know, hopefully raised some

453
00:24:08,720 --> 00:24:11,920
Speaker 1: funds on the stock market, which the folks running the

454
00:24:11,960 --> 00:24:15,000
Speaker 1: stock market kind of picked up on. They sort of

455
00:24:15,040 --> 00:24:17,760
Speaker 1: saw through this clever plan and um, and the company

456
00:24:17,760 --> 00:24:20,280
Speaker 1: would wind up losing another hundred billion of market value

457
00:24:20,320 --> 00:24:23,679
Speaker 1: over the next couple of years. UM. So, so the

458
00:24:23,680 --> 00:24:27,680
Speaker 1: company was not doing I mean, it was moving in

459
00:24:27,680 --> 00:24:31,600
Speaker 1: interesting ways, and I think that you know, doing clever stuff, right.

460
00:24:31,800 --> 00:24:35,200
Speaker 1: But in the long term, the moves they made were

461
00:24:35,280 --> 00:24:38,000
Speaker 1: good choices, but in the short term, it meant that

462
00:24:38,040 --> 00:24:41,360
Speaker 1: they suffered quite a bit because you know, we were

463
00:24:41,720 --> 00:24:43,919
Speaker 1: We've talked about how a T and T it was

464
00:24:44,080 --> 00:24:47,960
Speaker 1: built on the foundation of long distance telephone service. When

465
00:24:48,000 --> 00:24:52,119
Speaker 1: that stops becoming a way of generating significant revenue, it

466
00:24:52,160 --> 00:24:57,040
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily matter if your company has diversified, if everyone

467
00:24:57,080 --> 00:25:00,000
Speaker 1: still identifies your company as being a long long distance

468
00:25:00,040 --> 00:25:03,600
Speaker 1: service provider. Right. Also, you know, up until that point,

469
00:25:04,160 --> 00:25:06,639
Speaker 1: they had been they had been depending on long distance

470
00:25:06,720 --> 00:25:09,159
Speaker 1: profits to drive the company. But but long distance was

471
00:25:09,240 --> 00:25:12,200
Speaker 1: losing revenue um at a rate of each year. Yes,

472
00:25:12,280 --> 00:25:15,919
Speaker 1: so it was obvious that they had to start really

473
00:25:15,960 --> 00:25:20,320
Speaker 1: investigating other opportunities. So this broadband opportunity was a chance

474
00:25:20,359 --> 00:25:23,919
Speaker 1: for them to kind of really shift major gears in

475
00:25:24,160 --> 00:25:28,520
Speaker 1: what their company is all about and remain a viable

476
00:25:28,640 --> 00:25:32,000
Speaker 1: company because I mean, you know, fear is a great motivator.

477
00:25:32,040 --> 00:25:33,960
Speaker 1: As it turns out, if you're scared, then you you're

478
00:25:34,000 --> 00:25:38,280
Speaker 1: willing to try some some pretty uh, pretty radical things. Yeah,

479
00:25:38,320 --> 00:25:40,679
Speaker 1: and in this case, they really went in broadband, and

480
00:25:40,680 --> 00:25:43,040
Speaker 1: it turns out that it wasn't you know, it wasn't

481
00:25:43,040 --> 00:25:45,520
Speaker 1: a bad idea. In fact, two thousand also was the

482
00:25:45,680 --> 00:25:48,760
Speaker 1: year when a T and T saw more data traffic

483
00:25:48,840 --> 00:25:51,040
Speaker 1: than voice traffic on their network. It was the first

484
00:25:51,040 --> 00:25:54,080
Speaker 1: time that had ever happened. I wouldn't be surprised if

485
00:25:54,160 --> 00:25:58,000
Speaker 1: that is, you know, obviously multiplied many times now because

486
00:25:58,200 --> 00:26:00,880
Speaker 1: look at the enormous amount of data that transfers through

487
00:26:00,920 --> 00:26:03,359
Speaker 1: whether and your calls aren't usually taking up quite as

488
00:26:03,440 --> 00:26:07,480
Speaker 1: much as like YouTube video and you've got you've got

489
00:26:07,480 --> 00:26:09,960
Speaker 1: file transfers. I mean that that takes up a lot

490
00:26:10,000 --> 00:26:12,960
Speaker 1: of space. So I'm sure that that might have even

491
00:26:13,040 --> 00:26:16,240
Speaker 1: been the last year that they saw, you know, or

492
00:26:16,280 --> 00:26:19,879
Speaker 1: maybe the last year they saw voice traffic being greater

493
00:26:19,920 --> 00:26:23,959
Speaker 1: than data traffic. Would not be surprised. Two thousand one, however,

494
00:26:24,160 --> 00:26:27,200
Speaker 1: that's when a T and T Wireless becomes an independent company.

495
00:26:27,200 --> 00:26:30,120
Speaker 1: It spends off from a T and T. Uh, it's

496
00:26:30,119 --> 00:26:33,800
Speaker 1: a it's initial public offering, which you know is is

497
00:26:34,040 --> 00:26:36,920
Speaker 1: stock market terms for for going public and selling shares.

498
00:26:36,960 --> 00:26:39,960
Speaker 1: It's like a Debutan ball for stock like that. It

499
00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:43,120
Speaker 1: was the largest i PO in American history at the time. Yeah, yeah,

500
00:26:43,480 --> 00:26:46,560
Speaker 1: big deal. And also that was the year when Comcast

501
00:26:46,720 --> 00:26:49,840
Speaker 1: offered to acquire A T and T broadband, and a

502
00:26:49,920 --> 00:26:52,240
Speaker 1: T and T said, you know what, we will accept

503
00:26:52,280 --> 00:26:56,679
Speaker 1: your kind office sir, thank you. UM, all all of

504
00:26:56,720 --> 00:27:00,240
Speaker 1: this hullabaloo over over, you know, kind of diverse jing

505
00:27:00,320 --> 00:27:02,600
Speaker 1: and trying to split stuff up and manage their debt

506
00:27:02,800 --> 00:27:06,879
Speaker 1: didn't prevent innovation. Later that year, their customer service system,

507
00:27:06,880 --> 00:27:10,680
Speaker 1: how may I help you? Debuted and more natural language

508
00:27:10,720 --> 00:27:13,199
Speaker 1: more natural language stuff, which I think is probably the

509
00:27:13,200 --> 00:27:15,040
Speaker 1: point that they were trying to come to with all

510
00:27:15,080 --> 00:27:18,000
Speaker 1: of these previous natural language related I mean, maybe not

511
00:27:18,080 --> 00:27:19,600
Speaker 1: the specific point, but they were like, hey, you know

512
00:27:19,640 --> 00:27:21,720
Speaker 1: what would be really useful for this, um it was

513
00:27:21,720 --> 00:27:24,320
Speaker 1: an excellent application service. So the idea is that when

514
00:27:24,359 --> 00:27:28,160
Speaker 1: you call in, you get a automated response. So it's

515
00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:31,040
Speaker 1: not an actual quote, real human being on the other end,

516
00:27:31,600 --> 00:27:34,960
Speaker 1: uh end quote. It's rather a kind of robot. But

517
00:27:35,119 --> 00:27:38,960
Speaker 1: they try and have as realistic a synthetic voice as possible,

518
00:27:39,400 --> 00:27:42,520
Speaker 1: and the goal is to allow the customer to use

519
00:27:42,600 --> 00:27:46,080
Speaker 1: whatever language that he or she needs to express the

520
00:27:46,160 --> 00:27:48,960
Speaker 1: problem they're having, and then it can respond to that.

521
00:27:49,040 --> 00:27:52,080
Speaker 1: So instead of having you wait through a menu where

522
00:27:52,480 --> 00:27:56,360
Speaker 1: you know, for telephone service, press one, for a cable

523
00:27:56,480 --> 00:27:58,680
Speaker 1: press two, you know that kind of thing, you would

524
00:27:58,720 --> 00:28:01,159
Speaker 1: just say, you can hypothetically talk to the robot, and

525
00:28:01,280 --> 00:28:03,080
Speaker 1: I could just be things like, uh, you know, when

526
00:28:03,119 --> 00:28:05,040
Speaker 1: I call usually it's early in the morning, so there's

527
00:28:05,080 --> 00:28:09,920
Speaker 1: things like cable down fixed now fire bad. Personally, I

528
00:28:10,320 --> 00:28:12,399
Speaker 1: kind of missed the days when I could just punch

529
00:28:12,520 --> 00:28:14,960
Speaker 1: buttons and not have to pretend to talk to a robot.

530
00:28:15,080 --> 00:28:17,399
Speaker 1: I sort of get angry when I talked to robots.

531
00:28:17,400 --> 00:28:19,120
Speaker 1: I wind up yelling at them. The fact that we're

532
00:28:19,160 --> 00:28:21,879
Speaker 1: able to get Lauren and in front of a microphone

533
00:28:21,880 --> 00:28:27,360
Speaker 1: at all is a miracle. Every week, uh mostly involves

534
00:28:27,440 --> 00:28:30,160
Speaker 1: applying her with chocolate. Are you suggesting that you are

535
00:28:30,359 --> 00:28:33,400
Speaker 1: a robot? Oh? Yeah? And so the company also launched

536
00:28:33,640 --> 00:28:38,080
Speaker 1: Natural Voices, which is that synthesized voice program. So it

537
00:28:38,120 --> 00:28:41,280
Speaker 1: was a combination of the natural language recognition software and

538
00:28:41,360 --> 00:28:44,200
Speaker 1: this new synthesized human voice that was meant to be

539
00:28:44,320 --> 00:28:46,880
Speaker 1: as close to a natural voice as possible, so it

540
00:28:46,880 --> 00:28:49,120
Speaker 1: doesn't sound like you're speaking to a robot or someone

541
00:28:49,120 --> 00:28:52,400
Speaker 1: who puts the wrong embossis on the wrong salabl um.

542
00:28:52,440 --> 00:28:53,960
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've ever had one of those

543
00:28:53,960 --> 00:28:58,880
Speaker 1: calls where it's like, hello, thank you for calling service,

544
00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:03,840
Speaker 1: you know, Tuesday. Yeah, it's just weird. So, you know,

545
00:29:04,040 --> 00:29:06,680
Speaker 1: getting that to be more natural obviously creates a better

546
00:29:06,880 --> 00:29:09,440
Speaker 1: customer experience for most people, I would say, of course,

547
00:29:09,880 --> 00:29:13,000
Speaker 1: they were also around that time working on a bunch

548
00:29:13,040 --> 00:29:17,520
Speaker 1: of greater, greater network related issues. In two thousand two,

549
00:29:17,600 --> 00:29:23,240
Speaker 1: they rolled out yeah new optical network which was the

550
00:29:23,280 --> 00:29:26,640
Speaker 1: idea of the optical network was to decrease the problems

551
00:29:26,680 --> 00:29:29,600
Speaker 1: that would arise in the event of a natural disaster

552
00:29:29,720 --> 00:29:32,000
Speaker 1: or a massive failure. So it's kind of a response

553
00:29:32,040 --> 00:29:36,840
Speaker 1: emergency response for an infrastructure, meaning that if there were

554
00:29:37,000 --> 00:29:40,360
Speaker 1: say a hurricane hitting the Eastern Cboard and the phone

555
00:29:40,400 --> 00:29:43,560
Speaker 1: lines went down, this would help them respond faster to

556
00:29:43,600 --> 00:29:46,600
Speaker 1: get that repaired and return service, which is obviously important

557
00:29:46,640 --> 00:29:50,800
Speaker 1: for any kind of emergency situation, so very important, and

558
00:29:50,840 --> 00:29:53,200
Speaker 1: then work. They also worked to branch out as an

559
00:29:53,280 --> 00:29:58,160
Speaker 1: enterprise networking company. Before they had really been marketing their

560
00:29:58,200 --> 00:30:01,720
Speaker 1: their electronics and computer services is to the average consumer.

561
00:30:02,040 --> 00:30:05,760
Speaker 1: Now that we're thinking, you know, there's huge market in

562
00:30:05,800 --> 00:30:08,440
Speaker 1: the enterprise world where we can we can market directly

563
00:30:08,480 --> 00:30:11,600
Speaker 1: to other large companies and say let us handle these

564
00:30:11,640 --> 00:30:14,640
Speaker 1: systems for you. We know what we're doing, we're experts

565
00:30:14,640 --> 00:30:18,760
Speaker 1: in this field, and give us money. The end of

566
00:30:18,760 --> 00:30:22,520
Speaker 1: that sentence. But yeah. Two thousand three, Uh, they rolled

567
00:30:22,520 --> 00:30:26,520
Speaker 1: out the voice Tone product, which allowed customers to speak

568
00:30:26,520 --> 00:30:29,200
Speaker 1: with computers using natural language, so very similar to them

569
00:30:29,200 --> 00:30:31,600
Speaker 1: may I help you, But this time this was a

570
00:30:31,600 --> 00:30:34,640
Speaker 1: product that you could get if you were an enterprise,

571
00:30:34,640 --> 00:30:36,320
Speaker 1: for example, and you needed to have that same sort

572
00:30:36,360 --> 00:30:38,720
Speaker 1: of capability. So something that have been developed for in

573
00:30:38,840 --> 00:30:41,600
Speaker 1: house a T and T use or at least within

574
00:30:41,640 --> 00:30:46,040
Speaker 1: their customer service department. Yeah, it's an actual product. Always

575
00:30:46,040 --> 00:30:48,600
Speaker 1: a good idea if you are able to create a

576
00:30:48,920 --> 00:30:51,480
Speaker 1: you know, a usable system for that that's modular that

577
00:30:51,560 --> 00:30:56,280
Speaker 1: other people can use in their own networks. Uh. Two

578
00:30:56,320 --> 00:31:01,920
Speaker 1: thousand four, they introduced voice over Internet Protocol or for customers.

579
00:31:02,360 --> 00:31:06,520
Speaker 1: This obviously is allowing you to make voice phone calls

580
00:31:06,720 --> 00:31:10,600
Speaker 1: over Internet protocol. So it's using that same packet switching

581
00:31:10,880 --> 00:31:15,640
Speaker 1: kind of software that uh, your regular Internet traffic uses,

582
00:31:15,920 --> 00:31:19,880
Speaker 1: but for voice trend uh voice communication. UM. I had

583
00:31:19,920 --> 00:31:23,960
Speaker 1: friends who had voipe call like telephones voice telephones, which

584
00:31:23,960 --> 00:31:26,240
Speaker 1: were the idea was that, you know, using the data

585
00:31:26,320 --> 00:31:31,320
Speaker 1: service was sometimes a cheaper alternative to using voice service

586
00:31:32,000 --> 00:31:35,480
Speaker 1: like regular voice lines. The there are, or at least

587
00:31:35,480 --> 00:31:39,080
Speaker 1: there were some drawbacks with voipe phones, especially early days

588
00:31:39,920 --> 00:31:43,360
Speaker 1: involved like if you were to dial in nine, Uh,

589
00:31:43,480 --> 00:31:45,480
Speaker 1: it wouldn't necessarily know a route that call to the

590
00:31:45,520 --> 00:31:50,040
Speaker 1: closest center because yeah, because it would be over Internet protocol.

591
00:31:50,120 --> 00:31:54,360
Speaker 1: Not Yeah, I might make a call to the server.

592
00:31:54,840 --> 00:31:57,480
Speaker 1: Might I might make a call in Atlanta and get Tucson,

593
00:31:57,680 --> 00:31:59,960
Speaker 1: which is terribly helpful if my house is on fire,

594
00:32:00,840 --> 00:32:02,680
Speaker 1: unless my house happens to be in Tucson, in which

595
00:32:02,720 --> 00:32:04,600
Speaker 1: case I don't know why I'm in Atlanta making that call.

596
00:32:04,840 --> 00:32:09,440
Speaker 1: Come me neither. Yeah, you know, you know, stranger things. Um. Also,

597
00:32:09,440 --> 00:32:12,400
Speaker 1: in two thousand four, a company acquired a ten T

598
00:32:12,600 --> 00:32:16,080
Speaker 1: wireless that would be Singular, which was owned by a

599
00:32:16,200 --> 00:32:20,680
Speaker 1: little company called SBC, which is going to become extremely

600
00:32:20,720 --> 00:32:24,200
Speaker 1: important in the next year. Yeah, yeah, why don't we

601
00:32:24,280 --> 00:32:28,480
Speaker 1: just go ahead to two thousand five, So SBC, alright, SBC.

602
00:32:28,800 --> 00:32:30,880
Speaker 1: Now this is one of those companies again that had

603
00:32:30,960 --> 00:32:35,880
Speaker 1: named itself after its initials, So originally SBC stood for

604
00:32:35,960 --> 00:32:38,600
Speaker 1: something not just not just those letters, right, Yeah, that

605
00:32:38,640 --> 00:32:42,200
Speaker 1: would be Southwestern Bell Company a K. It was one

606
00:32:42,240 --> 00:32:44,960
Speaker 1: of the baby bells that split off way back in

607
00:32:45,840 --> 00:32:49,160
Speaker 1: two It started out as the smallest baby bell but

608
00:32:49,360 --> 00:32:51,600
Speaker 1: um but under the lead of a man named Ed

609
00:32:51,680 --> 00:32:55,640
Speaker 1: Whittaker who had been working for Southwestern Bell all his life. Um,

610
00:32:55,800 --> 00:32:59,720
Speaker 1: through through a whole lot of very savvy mechinations of

611
00:32:59,800 --> 00:33:02,440
Speaker 1: his is to bring the company into all of this

612
00:33:02,920 --> 00:33:04,960
Speaker 1: data in cable and et cetera stuff that A T

613
00:33:05,080 --> 00:33:09,080
Speaker 1: and T was was trying to some very wise acquisitions

614
00:33:09,480 --> 00:33:12,920
Speaker 1: and some very wise other Baby Bell acquisitions. Meeting, they

615
00:33:13,080 --> 00:33:17,240
Speaker 1: become the largest baby Bell. Yeah, that decision that was

616
00:33:17,320 --> 00:33:20,120
Speaker 1: handed down to divest A T and T of all

617
00:33:20,160 --> 00:33:24,040
Speaker 1: these properties. Uh you know, the intent was to try

618
00:33:24,080 --> 00:33:27,480
Speaker 1: and break up these monopolies. SBC had been growing year

619
00:33:27,520 --> 00:33:31,560
Speaker 1: over year and acquiring some of those Bell operating carriers.

620
00:33:31,680 --> 00:33:35,000
Speaker 1: Uh So, the while it avoided a monopoly with A

621
00:33:35,080 --> 00:33:37,160
Speaker 1: T and T at that moment, it kind of ended

622
00:33:37,240 --> 00:33:40,080
Speaker 1: up sort of creating at least, if not a monopoly,

623
00:33:40,680 --> 00:33:45,520
Speaker 1: a mega company in SPC. And then in two thousand five, SBC,

624
00:33:46,280 --> 00:33:49,239
Speaker 1: you know, plays the trump card by acquiring A T

625
00:33:49,320 --> 00:33:53,040
Speaker 1: and T. So the the sub company has now become

626
00:33:53,040 --> 00:33:55,880
Speaker 1: the parent company, although they then chose to change their

627
00:33:55,960 --> 00:33:59,800
Speaker 1: name to A T and T. Right. Um, and this

628
00:33:59,880 --> 00:34:03,000
Speaker 1: was only a sixteen billion dollar transaction. And I mean

629
00:34:03,080 --> 00:34:06,440
Speaker 1: I feel very silly saying only next to sixteen billion,

630
00:34:06,600 --> 00:34:08,480
Speaker 1: but considering what A T and T had been worth

631
00:34:08,520 --> 00:34:10,439
Speaker 1: in the past, that was a pittance. I mean this,

632
00:34:10,440 --> 00:34:13,279
Speaker 1: this was an indicator of how poorly the company was

633
00:34:13,360 --> 00:34:15,600
Speaker 1: doing at the time. By the way, if you feel

634
00:34:15,640 --> 00:34:18,359
Speaker 1: that I am worth only sixteen billion, I'll take it

635
00:34:18,520 --> 00:34:22,960
Speaker 1: right now and do whatever podcast or not do whatever

636
00:34:23,040 --> 00:34:26,680
Speaker 1: podcast you want me to, all right, So that's that's

637
00:34:26,960 --> 00:34:29,600
Speaker 1: in fact, you know what I'm generous. You get two

638
00:34:29,640 --> 00:34:32,600
Speaker 1: for one eight billion apiece. All right. So one of

639
00:34:32,640 --> 00:34:35,160
Speaker 1: A T and T s former regional carriers acquired A

640
00:34:35,200 --> 00:34:37,920
Speaker 1: T and T. That's the story here. It reunites those companies.

641
00:34:37,920 --> 00:34:41,600
Speaker 1: So now we've got long distance and regional reunited formally,

642
00:34:42,239 --> 00:34:45,240
Speaker 1: Keeping mind, A T. T had already gotten into regional

643
00:34:45,280 --> 00:34:48,719
Speaker 1: calls again starting with that New York market, and uh

644
00:34:49,040 --> 00:34:52,880
Speaker 1: SBC is now A T and T Incorporated, and the

645
00:34:52,920 --> 00:34:57,680
Speaker 1: company owns around eleven of the twenty four Bell system companies. Now,

646
00:34:57,719 --> 00:35:00,799
Speaker 1: keep in mind, those regional operating carriers were of representative

647
00:35:00,840 --> 00:35:05,919
Speaker 1: of larger buckets of companies, so twenty four total out

648
00:35:05,920 --> 00:35:09,080
Speaker 1: of the you know that fell within the seven regional ones.

649
00:35:09,760 --> 00:35:12,800
Speaker 1: A T T now has eleven of those twenty four backs.

650
00:35:12,800 --> 00:35:14,360
Speaker 1: So it's not as big as it was before the

651
00:35:14,440 --> 00:35:18,800
Speaker 1: judgment was handed down in that case. But it's it's big.

652
00:35:19,000 --> 00:35:22,799
Speaker 1: It's big again. It's it actually kind of amazes me.

653
00:35:23,560 --> 00:35:26,600
Speaker 1: I didn't come across anything. I didn't really dig deep enough,

654
00:35:26,640 --> 00:35:29,320
Speaker 1: I think, but I didn't come across any news items

655
00:35:29,320 --> 00:35:32,480
Speaker 1: about whether or not there was there were any alarms

656
00:35:32,560 --> 00:35:35,920
Speaker 1: raised over the fact that SBC, a former you know,

657
00:35:36,160 --> 00:35:37,920
Speaker 1: part of A T and T, was now going to

658
00:35:37,960 --> 00:35:42,880
Speaker 1: acquire A T and T and therefore partially negate this judgment.

659
00:35:43,320 --> 00:35:46,040
Speaker 1: I didn't see anything, but then I would imagine there

660
00:35:46,040 --> 00:35:48,759
Speaker 1: had to have been some I imagine that they had

661
00:35:48,800 --> 00:35:51,640
Speaker 1: their eye on the situation, and I mean they can't

662
00:35:51,719 --> 00:35:54,640
Speaker 1: not have. I mean, the federal government is all up

663
00:35:54,640 --> 00:35:57,400
Speaker 1: in a T T. S fries. Yeah, yeah, and especially recently.

664
00:35:57,440 --> 00:35:59,480
Speaker 1: I mean it it's but it's kind of funny because

665
00:35:59,520 --> 00:36:02,920
Speaker 1: we've had the story multiple times. We've done three podcasts

666
00:36:02,920 --> 00:36:05,200
Speaker 1: about A T and T. And the story of A

667
00:36:05,280 --> 00:36:07,200
Speaker 1: T T getting really big in the government stepping in

668
00:36:07,239 --> 00:36:09,360
Speaker 1: and saying, hey, let's take a look at this, guys,

669
00:36:09,560 --> 00:36:14,000
Speaker 1: has happened several times already. Uh don't know when we're

670
00:36:14,040 --> 00:36:16,879
Speaker 1: gonna learn that lesson, I guess Anyway, let's let's move

671
00:36:16,880 --> 00:36:20,080
Speaker 1: on to two thousand seven. Well, okay, what one more

672
00:36:20,120 --> 00:36:22,080
Speaker 1: important point for two thou five, which is going to

673
00:36:22,280 --> 00:36:24,360
Speaker 1: lead directly into two thousand and seven, is that around

674
00:36:24,440 --> 00:36:28,000
Speaker 1: this time, Steve Jobs began working with Singular, which again

675
00:36:28,360 --> 00:36:32,399
Speaker 1: um was part of SBC, to develop the iPhone and

676
00:36:32,560 --> 00:36:35,680
Speaker 1: features specifically for it, right and then, And that that

677
00:36:35,760 --> 00:36:39,840
Speaker 1: agreement included a five year exclusivity agreement, meaning that Singular

678
00:36:39,840 --> 00:36:42,799
Speaker 1: would be the only carrier to carry the iPhone for

679
00:36:42,840 --> 00:36:46,040
Speaker 1: five years, right and uh. In addition to that, like

680
00:36:46,160 --> 00:36:49,360
Speaker 1: roughly ten percent of iPhone sales and stores a slice

681
00:36:49,440 --> 00:36:53,000
Speaker 1: of Apple's iTunes revenue um and this was all for

682
00:36:53,200 --> 00:36:57,720
Speaker 1: the development money that Singular Labs was providing. And also

683
00:36:57,920 --> 00:37:00,160
Speaker 1: um for a for a new a new feature you're

684
00:37:00,160 --> 00:37:03,759
Speaker 1: called visual Voicemail, which would become the consternation of many

685
00:37:03,840 --> 00:37:09,640
Speaker 1: human people several years later, um and uh, and and

686
00:37:09,800 --> 00:37:12,600
Speaker 1: revenue sharing agreement that would work out to about ten

687
00:37:12,640 --> 00:37:14,800
Speaker 1: bucks a month for every iPhone customers a T and

688
00:37:14,840 --> 00:37:17,960
Speaker 1: T or Singular at that time, bill Right, So then

689
00:37:18,280 --> 00:37:21,160
Speaker 1: SPC acquires a T and T SBC becomes a T

690
00:37:21,280 --> 00:37:24,680
Speaker 1: and T Incorporated, which means that the dealer becomes a

691
00:37:24,760 --> 00:37:28,520
Speaker 1: T and T essentially again. So that means that the

692
00:37:28,560 --> 00:37:31,680
Speaker 1: iPhone in two thousand seven, when it premiers and blows

693
00:37:31,719 --> 00:37:34,439
Speaker 1: everybody away, Steve Jobs up there on that stage and

694
00:37:34,719 --> 00:37:38,800
Speaker 1: showing off this gorgeous device that everyone didn't know they needed,

695
00:37:38,840 --> 00:37:41,839
Speaker 1: and now we're convinced that absolutely they needed this right now.

696
00:37:41,920 --> 00:37:45,160
Speaker 1: Gosh darn it would go exclusively in the United States

697
00:37:45,160 --> 00:37:48,080
Speaker 1: to a T and T, which was a huge boon

698
00:37:48,239 --> 00:37:51,120
Speaker 1: for them. I mean that it was you know, it's

699
00:37:51,200 --> 00:37:57,200
Speaker 1: hard to really put into into words how influential the

700
00:37:57,280 --> 00:38:01,240
Speaker 1: iPhone has been, because even if you don't own an iPhone,

701
00:38:01,239 --> 00:38:04,839
Speaker 1: if you want a smartphone, the iPhone has influenced that

702
00:38:05,000 --> 00:38:07,600
Speaker 1: design obviously. I mean a lot of the design elements

703
00:38:07,640 --> 00:38:10,560
Speaker 1: that you see, while they may not be a you know,

704
00:38:10,600 --> 00:38:12,680
Speaker 1: you might not say, oh they copied Apple. Maybe they

705
00:38:12,719 --> 00:38:15,200
Speaker 1: went very much out of the way to not copy Apple,

706
00:38:15,239 --> 00:38:19,200
Speaker 1: but that means that the Apple influenced them. So it's

707
00:38:19,719 --> 00:38:22,440
Speaker 1: pretty amazing stuff. And of course, I mean, I remember

708
00:38:22,560 --> 00:38:26,319
Speaker 1: the craze that went out when the iPhone came out.

709
00:38:26,440 --> 00:38:28,480
Speaker 1: Me I was like, I'm gonna wait a few more

710
00:38:28,480 --> 00:38:31,600
Speaker 1: months because Android's coming, and uh, and so I did.

711
00:38:31,680 --> 00:38:34,120
Speaker 1: I waited it out and got myself an Android phone.

712
00:38:34,640 --> 00:38:37,400
Speaker 1: My wife has an iPhone and we fight. That's a

713
00:38:37,440 --> 00:38:42,239
Speaker 1: different podcast. UM two seven was also the year that

714
00:38:42,600 --> 00:38:46,080
Speaker 1: announced that that wireless services were going to be the

715
00:38:46,120 --> 00:38:48,480
Speaker 1: main focus of the company, And I mean that was

716
00:38:48,719 --> 00:38:52,319
Speaker 1: kind of obvious following their huge investment of the indianaphone.

717
00:38:52,400 --> 00:38:54,879
Speaker 1: In hindsight, we can definitely say it's obvious, but keep

718
00:38:54,880 --> 00:38:58,080
Speaker 1: in mind that before the iPhone, and while wireless was

719
00:38:58,120 --> 00:39:02,080
Speaker 1: definitely becoming important because everyone was adopting cell phones, smartphones

720
00:39:02,120 --> 00:39:04,239
Speaker 1: had not really taken off in the United States and

721
00:39:04,280 --> 00:39:06,120
Speaker 1: the consumer market at all, and no one could have

722
00:39:06,160 --> 00:39:09,040
Speaker 1: predicted how big they would become so shortly, right, so

723
00:39:09,320 --> 00:39:11,600
Speaker 1: that that was a very wise kind of move on

724
00:39:11,640 --> 00:39:13,680
Speaker 1: their part. You know, some people might say it was

725
00:39:13,719 --> 00:39:16,200
Speaker 1: a little late on their part, but I think considering

726
00:39:16,320 --> 00:39:18,480
Speaker 1: that there was no way of knowing at that time

727
00:39:18,520 --> 00:39:20,120
Speaker 1: what was going to happen, it was it was the

728
00:39:20,200 --> 00:39:22,840
Speaker 1: right move. And and you know, they would spend seventy

729
00:39:22,960 --> 00:39:26,520
Speaker 1: billion on acquiring Spectrum and on building out wireless networks

730
00:39:26,520 --> 00:39:28,560
Speaker 1: in the next three years alone, so they were pretty

731
00:39:28,600 --> 00:39:30,640
Speaker 1: serious about it. Yeah, although if you lived in New

732
00:39:30,719 --> 00:39:32,600
Speaker 1: York or San Francisco, you had a lot to say

733
00:39:32,640 --> 00:39:34,560
Speaker 1: about that A T and T service in those early

734
00:39:34,640 --> 00:39:38,760
Speaker 1: days on the iPhone. I don't live there, but since

735
00:39:38,840 --> 00:39:41,320
Speaker 1: we work in technology and a lot of our peers

736
00:39:41,320 --> 00:39:44,080
Speaker 1: work in San Francisco and New York, we were bombarded

737
00:39:44,840 --> 00:39:47,440
Speaker 1: with complaints. Heard heard a bunch about that one. Um.

738
00:39:47,520 --> 00:39:49,399
Speaker 1: Also in two thousand and seven, as a side note,

739
00:39:49,400 --> 00:39:52,000
Speaker 1: at At At Whittaker announced his retirement from A T and T.

740
00:39:52,239 --> 00:39:55,600
Speaker 1: He would go on to basically turn General General Motor

741
00:39:55,640 --> 00:39:58,440
Speaker 1: Company around from its bankruptcy in two thousand nine. I

742
00:39:58,440 --> 00:40:01,560
Speaker 1: always find it very admirable to see people who are

743
00:40:01,960 --> 00:40:05,759
Speaker 1: just incredible leaders move on from one position to another,

744
00:40:05,840 --> 00:40:10,000
Speaker 1: not even necessarily for for profit, but because they like

745
00:40:10,200 --> 00:40:13,920
Speaker 1: the challenge of taking a company that's struggling perhaps or

746
00:40:13,960 --> 00:40:17,399
Speaker 1: maybe just not performing up to expectations and really turning

747
00:40:17,400 --> 00:40:19,759
Speaker 1: it around. I always find those stories interesting, especially I

748
00:40:19,840 --> 00:40:21,160
Speaker 1: kind of I kind of want to look more into

749
00:40:21,280 --> 00:40:24,000
Speaker 1: into this, into this dude, because he was you know,

750
00:40:24,040 --> 00:40:27,040
Speaker 1: he started as an industrial engineer and and worked in

751
00:40:27,080 --> 00:40:29,600
Speaker 1: engineering before he moved all the way up through the

752
00:40:29,640 --> 00:40:32,960
Speaker 1: company to become its as CEO. That's also a phenomenal

753
00:40:32,960 --> 00:40:34,520
Speaker 1: story because what we oo could and we hear all

754
00:40:34,520 --> 00:40:36,440
Speaker 1: those stories about people who just come out of business

755
00:40:36,520 --> 00:40:40,280
Speaker 1: schools and go into leadership roles without having actually worked

756
00:40:40,320 --> 00:40:43,440
Speaker 1: in the rank and file of various companies. It's always

757
00:40:43,440 --> 00:40:46,040
Speaker 1: fun to have. Maybe we'll put that analyticer down as

758
00:40:46,040 --> 00:40:50,160
Speaker 1: a potential person to cover in a future episode. We're

759
00:40:50,160 --> 00:40:53,160
Speaker 1: in the home stretch, about to finish out our three

760
00:40:53,239 --> 00:40:55,640
Speaker 1: partner on A T and T. But first let's take

761
00:40:55,719 --> 00:41:06,799
Speaker 1: another quick break. Alright, So two thousand seven, we've got

762
00:41:06,840 --> 00:41:08,920
Speaker 1: that A T and T with the iPhone. They have

763
00:41:09,000 --> 00:41:12,200
Speaker 1: the exclusivity deal, which would not last uh five years.

764
00:41:12,280 --> 00:41:15,759
Speaker 1: It wouldn't be two thousand twelve before the iPhone was

765
00:41:15,760 --> 00:41:17,759
Speaker 1: available on other carriers in the United States. It would

766
00:41:17,760 --> 00:41:20,280
Speaker 1: actually be two thousand eleven. Do you have anything between

767
00:41:20,280 --> 00:41:26,279
Speaker 1: twenty Alright, So nothing happened in two thousand eight nine

768
00:41:26,360 --> 00:41:29,480
Speaker 1: or universe ceased to exist briefly. We all just took

769
00:41:29,480 --> 00:41:31,680
Speaker 1: a break, you know, we're all you know, they're watching

770
00:41:31,719 --> 00:41:34,759
Speaker 1: television or something. Two thousand eleven rolls around at A

771
00:41:34,880 --> 00:41:37,040
Speaker 1: T and t s exclusive hold in the iPhone in

772
00:41:37,040 --> 00:41:40,080
Speaker 1: the United States ends, uh, And also a T and

773
00:41:40,120 --> 00:41:44,200
Speaker 1: T makes a move to acquire a rival cellular company,

774
00:41:44,320 --> 00:41:47,359
Speaker 1: T Mobile. Yeah, and that one, in fact, would get

775
00:41:47,520 --> 00:41:50,000
Speaker 1: the strong attention of the f c C. Yeah, and

776
00:41:50,040 --> 00:41:52,520
Speaker 1: the Department of Justice, as it turns out, and so

777
00:41:52,520 --> 00:41:56,120
Speaker 1: so I remember hearing about that, and immediately my response

778
00:41:56,239 --> 00:42:00,160
Speaker 1: was please, no, no, no, no, never. Why But as

779
00:42:00,239 --> 00:42:02,520
Speaker 1: a T and T and T mobile, While you know,

780
00:42:02,560 --> 00:42:06,080
Speaker 1: A T T is the second largest cellular service company

781
00:42:06,200 --> 00:42:08,920
Speaker 1: in the United States, the first being Verizon, the third

782
00:42:09,040 --> 00:42:12,080
Speaker 1: is Sprint, and the fourth is T Mobile. Now, a

783
00:42:12,200 --> 00:42:15,040
Speaker 1: T and T and T Mobile both work on the

784
00:42:15,120 --> 00:42:19,479
Speaker 1: same general technology for cellular service, whereas Verizon and Sprint

785
00:42:19,560 --> 00:42:21,960
Speaker 1: work on the other one. So the one that a

786
00:42:22,040 --> 00:42:23,600
Speaker 1: T and T and T mobile uses is the one

787
00:42:23,640 --> 00:42:26,040
Speaker 1: that most of the world uses. And I thought, well,

788
00:42:26,120 --> 00:42:28,440
Speaker 1: that means that while it looks like your choice is

789
00:42:28,480 --> 00:42:31,600
Speaker 1: only going down from from one and four to one

790
00:42:31,600 --> 00:42:33,640
Speaker 1: and three for the major carriers, keep in mind they're

791
00:42:33,680 --> 00:42:36,920
Speaker 1: smaller carriers in the US. When the major carriers, your

792
00:42:37,000 --> 00:42:39,239
Speaker 1: choices go down from one and four to one and three.

793
00:42:39,560 --> 00:42:42,160
Speaker 1: In effect, it really meant that if you wanted that

794
00:42:42,200 --> 00:42:45,759
Speaker 1: particular type of technology where you could theoretically be able

795
00:42:45,800 --> 00:42:47,360
Speaker 1: to use your phone in other parts of the world

796
00:42:47,400 --> 00:42:50,719
Speaker 1: depending on how your plan worked that out, Um, you

797
00:42:50,800 --> 00:42:52,839
Speaker 1: only had one choice if A T and T were

798
00:42:52,840 --> 00:42:55,160
Speaker 1: to acquire T Mobile at least one major choice that

799
00:42:55,239 --> 00:42:57,600
Speaker 1: had a lot of support in the United States. So

800
00:42:57,760 --> 00:43:00,360
Speaker 1: I was very much against it. I was not the

801
00:43:00,400 --> 00:43:04,560
Speaker 1: only one. There were lots of people that were just

802
00:43:04,760 --> 00:43:08,520
Speaker 1: leading the charge against this potential merger. A T and

803
00:43:08,560 --> 00:43:10,520
Speaker 1: T and T Mobile would meet with the United States

804
00:43:10,560 --> 00:43:13,040
Speaker 1: government multiple times to kind of give testimony as to

805
00:43:13,120 --> 00:43:15,279
Speaker 1: why they thought this was a great idea. A T

806
00:43:15,400 --> 00:43:18,520
Speaker 1: and T claimed that this would create thousands of new jobs,

807
00:43:18,760 --> 00:43:22,080
Speaker 1: whereas the company, the organizations and parts of the government

808
00:43:22,120 --> 00:43:25,960
Speaker 1: that were opposed to this said exactly the opposite that

809
00:43:26,000 --> 00:43:29,719
Speaker 1: it was going to end up eliminating jobs, um particularly

810
00:43:29,760 --> 00:43:33,240
Speaker 1: in various regions of the United States where they had

811
00:43:33,560 --> 00:43:36,839
Speaker 1: major operating centers that they were afraid would shut down

812
00:43:36,840 --> 00:43:40,120
Speaker 1: as a result of this this merger. So yeah, it

813
00:43:40,200 --> 00:43:44,719
Speaker 1: was a big deal. The approximately thirty nine billion dollar deal.

814
00:43:45,400 --> 00:43:49,680
Speaker 1: UH Sprint launched a project called No Takeover so Sprint

815
00:43:49,880 --> 00:43:53,200
Speaker 1: Sprints like, you know, guys, I know we're not directly

816
00:43:53,239 --> 00:43:56,080
Speaker 1: involved in this merger, but we would be directly affected

817
00:43:56,120 --> 00:43:59,640
Speaker 1: by it. So that's why they launched a campaign to

818
00:43:59,760 --> 00:44:03,560
Speaker 1: raise awareness and to to get some more traction against

819
00:44:03,600 --> 00:44:06,360
Speaker 1: the move, and the U s Department of Justice and

820
00:44:06,440 --> 00:44:09,040
Speaker 1: the FCC opposed the deal. A T and T would

821
00:44:09,080 --> 00:44:12,760
Speaker 1: eventually withdraw the deal right around the end of twenty

822
00:44:12,840 --> 00:44:16,319
Speaker 1: eleven the beginning of and the Department of Justice actually said,

823
00:44:16,320 --> 00:44:18,239
Speaker 1: we feel the combination of A T and T and

824
00:44:18,280 --> 00:44:21,160
Speaker 1: T Mobile would result in tens of millions of consumers

825
00:44:21,160 --> 00:44:24,279
Speaker 1: facing higher prices, fewer choices, and low quality products for

826
00:44:24,320 --> 00:44:28,080
Speaker 1: wireless services, which, uh, I think in the tech bis

827
00:44:28,080 --> 00:44:33,080
Speaker 1: we call a sick burn. Uh. Yeah, So the merger

828
00:44:33,120 --> 00:44:35,719
Speaker 1: does not go through, it it falls through. Now this

829
00:44:35,800 --> 00:44:38,040
Speaker 1: was a big deal because we also were talking about

830
00:44:38,560 --> 00:44:43,959
Speaker 1: T Mobile's parent company in dire financial straits and so,

831
00:44:44,239 --> 00:44:47,759
Speaker 1: but T Mobile was operating independently pretty much already at

832
00:44:47,800 --> 00:44:50,279
Speaker 1: that point anyway. It was just a question of who

833
00:44:50,360 --> 00:44:51,799
Speaker 1: was going to buy it up or was it going

834
00:44:51,840 --> 00:44:54,080
Speaker 1: to just continue to be um, you know, sort of

835
00:44:54,120 --> 00:44:57,920
Speaker 1: a self sustaining entity. In two thousand and twelve, H

836
00:44:58,160 --> 00:45:00,840
Speaker 1: A T. T gets sued again by the United States

837
00:45:00,840 --> 00:45:04,480
Speaker 1: Department of Justice. The Department of Justice alleged that the

838
00:45:04,680 --> 00:45:10,160
Speaker 1: carrier intentionally neglected to authenticate users of the IP relay service.

839
00:45:10,600 --> 00:45:12,640
Speaker 1: That's a tool that was used by or it is

840
00:45:12,760 --> 00:45:15,919
Speaker 1: used by people who have hearing impairment. Uh. The way

841
00:45:15,920 --> 00:45:18,680
Speaker 1: it works as they can type in messages and a

842
00:45:18,719 --> 00:45:23,680
Speaker 1: communications assistant reads the message out loud to a caller.

843
00:45:24,200 --> 00:45:26,400
Speaker 1: So it's kind of a you know, it's a service

844
00:45:26,440 --> 00:45:29,160
Speaker 1: so that someone who might be deaf or unable to

845
00:45:29,200 --> 00:45:32,120
Speaker 1: communicate in a way that that most people could understand

846
00:45:32,560 --> 00:45:37,160
Speaker 1: could contact a middle person who would relay the information. Well,

847
00:45:37,800 --> 00:45:41,720
Speaker 1: the problem with this approach was that scammers were starting

848
00:45:41,719 --> 00:45:45,280
Speaker 1: to use it as a means of getting getting around

849
00:45:45,440 --> 00:45:47,880
Speaker 1: um write laws that that would prevent them, like they

850
00:45:47,880 --> 00:45:50,279
Speaker 1: would end up like let's say you've heard, of course

851
00:45:50,320 --> 00:45:54,280
Speaker 1: of the Nigerian scam. The idea of this person who

852
00:45:54,480 --> 00:45:57,200
Speaker 1: is has shares your last name but does not have

853
00:45:57,280 --> 00:46:00,160
Speaker 1: a direct relation to you, has died and there's all

854
00:46:00,160 --> 00:46:01,560
Speaker 1: this money that I want to get out of the

855
00:46:01,600 --> 00:46:04,280
Speaker 1: country and just for a small cut of the money,

856
00:46:04,840 --> 00:46:07,120
Speaker 1: I will let you have the lion's share of it.

857
00:46:07,320 --> 00:46:11,439
Speaker 1: I just need to transfer it, but but put forth

858
00:46:11,440 --> 00:46:13,440
Speaker 1: a little bit first. Yeah, so that I can I

859
00:46:13,440 --> 00:46:16,239
Speaker 1: can do the thing. It's all scam, right. So it

860
00:46:16,239 --> 00:46:19,680
Speaker 1: turns out scammers were using the the IP relay service

861
00:46:19,960 --> 00:46:22,600
Speaker 1: to try and target people, and so the f c

862
00:46:22,800 --> 00:46:25,959
Speaker 1: c UH and the d o J both had kind

863
00:46:26,000 --> 00:46:30,000
Speaker 1: of what A. T. T said, we're conflicting um directives

864
00:46:30,239 --> 00:46:32,640
Speaker 1: because the f c C said, if you're a carrier,

865
00:46:33,000 --> 00:46:36,239
Speaker 1: you have to support this service because otherwise you are

866
00:46:36,360 --> 00:46:40,560
Speaker 1: not servicing the hearing impaired community. The Department of Justice said,

867
00:46:40,600 --> 00:46:43,200
Speaker 1: you have to verify the identity of the people who

868
00:46:43,239 --> 00:46:46,280
Speaker 1: want to use this service so that you aren't allowing

869
00:46:46,719 --> 00:46:51,040
Speaker 1: scam artists to target victims. And A T and T said,

870
00:46:51,200 --> 00:46:53,840
Speaker 1: what are we supposed to do. We're stuck in between

871
00:46:53,880 --> 00:46:55,960
Speaker 1: these two directives where we have to give this, but

872
00:46:56,000 --> 00:46:58,560
Speaker 1: we also have to do that, And Department of Justice

873
00:46:58,600 --> 00:47:01,319
Speaker 1: was sent saying essentially, we don't buy it. You just

874
00:47:01,360 --> 00:47:04,160
Speaker 1: have to figure out a way to verify this. Yeah,

875
00:47:04,160 --> 00:47:07,680
Speaker 1: you gotta you gotta have a verification system. UM and

876
00:47:07,800 --> 00:47:10,160
Speaker 1: from one, I haven't seen any resolution to that, so

877
00:47:10,200 --> 00:47:12,680
Speaker 1: I don't know that that particular case may still be

878
00:47:12,680 --> 00:47:15,239
Speaker 1: ongoing as of the recording of this podcast. If it

879
00:47:15,280 --> 00:47:18,120
Speaker 1: has resolved, I could not find any information. That's one

880
00:47:18,160 --> 00:47:21,040
Speaker 1: of the problems of following up on on reporting about

881
00:47:21,239 --> 00:47:26,719
Speaker 1: these Yeah, you'll you'll hear about it when the lawsuit

882
00:47:26,840 --> 00:47:29,680
Speaker 1: is leveled, But then there's not a lot of follow

883
00:47:29,760 --> 00:47:33,520
Speaker 1: US resolutions to lawsuits are occasionally considered less news worthy.

884
00:47:34,239 --> 00:47:37,319
Speaker 1: That's unfortunate. That same year, in two thousand twelve, A

885
00:47:37,360 --> 00:47:41,880
Speaker 1: T and T made a hundred twenty six point four

886
00:47:42,000 --> 00:47:45,720
Speaker 1: billion dollars in revenues. That's according to their two thousand

887
00:47:45,760 --> 00:47:48,759
Speaker 1: twelve financial report, which I looked up just before we

888
00:47:48,840 --> 00:47:51,840
Speaker 1: came in here. That was a two point four percent

889
00:47:51,960 --> 00:47:55,240
Speaker 1: growth over two thousand eleven revenues. And in that same report,

890
00:47:55,800 --> 00:47:58,640
Speaker 1: A T and T VP of Consumer Product Planning and

891
00:47:58,719 --> 00:48:02,120
Speaker 1: Research said that A and T was looking at mobile payments,

892
00:48:02,160 --> 00:48:05,480
Speaker 1: as in using your smartphone as your payment way, Like

893
00:48:05,520 --> 00:48:07,400
Speaker 1: if you go to a restaurant, you tap your smartphone

894
00:48:07,400 --> 00:48:11,279
Speaker 1: against that whole NFC wallet kind of stuff. I think

895
00:48:11,280 --> 00:48:13,920
Speaker 1: that's great. I really look forward to the to being

896
00:48:13,960 --> 00:48:16,000
Speaker 1: able to use my smartphone to pay for stuff as

897
00:48:16,040 --> 00:48:18,759
Speaker 1: long as it's secure. But the biggest issue I have is,

898
00:48:19,000 --> 00:48:21,680
Speaker 1: I mean beyond security, which clearly that needs to be

899
00:48:21,760 --> 00:48:25,759
Speaker 1: number one, but number two is my concern that there

900
00:48:25,800 --> 00:48:28,360
Speaker 1: are all these different systems that are being proposed that

901
00:48:28,400 --> 00:48:31,320
Speaker 1: different companies are behind, Like Google has Google Wallet, A T.

902
00:48:31,440 --> 00:48:33,279
Speaker 1: T has this other one, and then you've got these

903
00:48:33,280 --> 00:48:36,239
Speaker 1: other companies that are looking at it too. If all

904
00:48:36,280 --> 00:48:39,960
Speaker 1: of them are using proprietary language for their systems, that

905
00:48:40,040 --> 00:48:43,319
Speaker 1: means that the merchants have to choose which system are

906
00:48:43,320 --> 00:48:46,000
Speaker 1: they going to support, because you know, I doubt that

907
00:48:46,080 --> 00:48:47,759
Speaker 1: most of them are going to have some sort of

908
00:48:48,160 --> 00:48:50,920
Speaker 1: multiple support that would be expensive for them to be

909
00:48:51,000 --> 00:48:54,120
Speaker 1: part of all these different programs. So a merchant has

910
00:48:54,120 --> 00:48:56,359
Speaker 1: to make it kind of a decision like which one

911
00:48:56,560 --> 00:48:58,200
Speaker 1: is likely to be the most popular, That's the one

912
00:48:58,239 --> 00:49:00,520
Speaker 1: I'm going to support, Which means that as a consumer,

913
00:49:00,920 --> 00:49:04,640
Speaker 1: your choices are limited. You may have no choice at all.

914
00:49:04,800 --> 00:49:07,120
Speaker 1: You may have to use a specific type of phone

915
00:49:07,200 --> 00:49:09,440
Speaker 1: if you want to take advantage of that kind of service.

916
00:49:10,440 --> 00:49:13,600
Speaker 1: I don't like that. I like it when everybody is

917
00:49:13,680 --> 00:49:17,279
Speaker 1: using using the same basic set of language, so that

918
00:49:17,320 --> 00:49:21,480
Speaker 1: the merchant can have a single device and no matter

919
00:49:21,600 --> 00:49:24,080
Speaker 1: what phone you use, you can use it as long

920
00:49:24,120 --> 00:49:27,120
Speaker 1: as it's compatible with that device. I think that most

921
00:49:27,440 --> 00:49:31,759
Speaker 1: m app creators these days realize the efficiency that the

922
00:49:31,800 --> 00:49:36,319
Speaker 1: profit in making things available to multiple platforms, so or

923
00:49:36,320 --> 00:49:39,600
Speaker 1: I guess multiple um devices right right. Yeah, It's just

924
00:49:39,640 --> 00:49:42,640
Speaker 1: it's tough when the the service provider is also the

925
00:49:42,640 --> 00:49:45,480
Speaker 1: one who creates the hardware as is the case. Well,

926
00:49:45,520 --> 00:49:47,480
Speaker 1: A T and T does not directly create the hardware,

927
00:49:47,719 --> 00:49:51,120
Speaker 1: but they create a layer of firmware and software that

928
00:49:51,239 --> 00:49:55,839
Speaker 1: that hardware carries. So it definitely again, it's something to watch.

929
00:49:57,120 --> 00:49:59,239
Speaker 1: Maybe a few years the Department Justice will step in

930
00:49:59,320 --> 00:50:02,279
Speaker 1: and say, hey, I know that we keep talking to

931
00:50:02,320 --> 00:50:05,520
Speaker 1: you guys, and I'm really sorry. I didn't bring this

932
00:50:05,600 --> 00:50:07,880
Speaker 1: up last time, but we didn't know that it existed.

933
00:50:07,920 --> 00:50:11,920
Speaker 1: Then yeah, we'll see if that happens. But there's also

934
00:50:12,080 --> 00:50:14,319
Speaker 1: some other interesting stuff mentioned in that report that A

935
00:50:14,440 --> 00:50:16,160
Speaker 1: T and T is working on stuff that I find

936
00:50:16,280 --> 00:50:19,640
Speaker 1: really exciting. Again, the whole proprietary network stuff is that

937
00:50:19,840 --> 00:50:23,879
Speaker 1: it could be an issue, but it's still exciting technologies

938
00:50:23,920 --> 00:50:27,040
Speaker 1: like vehicle to vehicle communications. A T and T labs

939
00:50:27,080 --> 00:50:30,839
Speaker 1: are looking into that vehicle to road communications. We've talked

940
00:50:30,840 --> 00:50:33,080
Speaker 1: about that on tech stuff, We've talked about it on

941
00:50:33,120 --> 00:50:35,759
Speaker 1: forward thinking. We you know the idea of having these

942
00:50:36,440 --> 00:50:39,440
Speaker 1: communicating vehicles and communicating infrastructure. Yeah, A T and T

943
00:50:39,560 --> 00:50:42,480
Speaker 1: is actually working with several auto manufacturers from A Tesla

944
00:50:42,560 --> 00:50:46,480
Speaker 1: to BMW, Nissan and Ford um to to provide that

945
00:50:46,520 --> 00:50:51,160
Speaker 1: Internet Internet connectivity to new automate automobiles. Yeah, which is fantastic.

946
00:50:51,200 --> 00:50:52,680
Speaker 1: I mean when you think about it, that means that

947
00:50:52,800 --> 00:50:56,359
Speaker 1: cars can communicate with one another, traffic can smooth out

948
00:50:56,360 --> 00:50:59,600
Speaker 1: over time, you can have that sort of collision detection

949
00:50:59,640 --> 00:51:02,560
Speaker 1: techno oology built in there. In other words, you can

950
00:51:02,600 --> 00:51:06,600
Speaker 1: make driving safer, uh slightly more automated, not to the

951
00:51:06,640 --> 00:51:09,000
Speaker 1: point where the car is taking over for you, but

952
00:51:09,080 --> 00:51:11,040
Speaker 1: the car at least is able to alert you to

953
00:51:11,120 --> 00:51:13,799
Speaker 1: things that otherwise you would not know or even help

954
00:51:14,680 --> 00:51:19,160
Speaker 1: the the infrastructure, the traffic infrastructure respond to dynamic changes,

955
00:51:19,200 --> 00:51:21,520
Speaker 1: so or to you know, just get just get the

956
00:51:21,560 --> 00:51:24,120
Speaker 1: music that you want to listen to from Pandora, Spotify

957
00:51:24,239 --> 00:51:26,279
Speaker 1: or something like that to play in your car. What

958
00:51:26,440 --> 00:51:30,000
Speaker 1: I want I want them to develop a technology where

959
00:51:30,320 --> 00:51:33,279
Speaker 1: when my car pulls up next to another car and

960
00:51:33,320 --> 00:51:35,319
Speaker 1: I can see that the driver in that other car

961
00:51:35,480 --> 00:51:38,640
Speaker 1: is really rocking out to something, but I can't hear it,

962
00:51:39,040 --> 00:51:41,360
Speaker 1: I can find out what music they're listening to and

963
00:51:41,360 --> 00:51:43,520
Speaker 1: then listen to that myself just to find out. You know,

964
00:51:43,640 --> 00:51:46,960
Speaker 1: is that really worth it? They just could I rock

965
00:51:47,000 --> 00:51:48,320
Speaker 1: out there? They would just they would just get J

966
00:51:48,440 --> 00:51:51,360
Speaker 1: pop for me all the time. As you have revealed

967
00:51:51,360 --> 00:51:55,440
Speaker 1: to everybody on Forward Taking. Speaking of Forward Thinking, if

968
00:51:55,440 --> 00:51:59,640
Speaker 1: you are interested in automated automobiles, we just did a

969
00:52:00,040 --> 00:52:02,319
Speaker 1: their episode on that, so that should be coming out soon. Yeah,

970
00:52:02,400 --> 00:52:04,880
Speaker 1: so definitely go check out that podcast. We have a

971
00:52:04,920 --> 00:52:07,680
Speaker 1: lot of fun on that show. So if you enjoy

972
00:52:07,760 --> 00:52:10,120
Speaker 1: tech stuff, I'm sure you would love Forward Thinking. Yeah.

973
00:52:10,360 --> 00:52:13,719
Speaker 1: So does that brings us up? It does? Yes. That's

974
00:52:13,760 --> 00:52:15,879
Speaker 1: when A T and T announced it would acquire Leap

975
00:52:16,000 --> 00:52:20,839
Speaker 1: Wireless for one point two billion dollars. It's also when

976
00:52:21,000 --> 00:52:23,040
Speaker 1: you Verse, which is a T and T S broadband

977
00:52:23,040 --> 00:52:27,480
Speaker 1: television and internet service, had its first billion dollar revenue month,

978
00:52:28,000 --> 00:52:30,759
Speaker 1: a billion dollars in one month I think. I think

979
00:52:30,760 --> 00:52:34,680
Speaker 1: in two thousand and twelve. They made ten billion dollars

980
00:52:34,719 --> 00:52:37,120
Speaker 1: over the course of the year, so one billion dollar

981
00:52:37,200 --> 00:52:41,719
Speaker 1: month that that was. That's huge growth. That's that's pretty enormous.

982
00:52:41,760 --> 00:52:45,960
Speaker 1: You know. Um, that's exciting for A T and T. Yeah.

983
00:52:45,960 --> 00:52:48,360
Speaker 1: A T and T is currently because we are recording

984
00:52:48,360 --> 00:52:51,480
Speaker 1: this podcast in October, they are currently the second largest

985
00:52:51,520 --> 00:52:55,920
Speaker 1: wireless provider after Verizon Um. According to Forbes, one of

986
00:52:56,000 --> 00:52:58,240
Speaker 1: A T and t s growing businesses is in providing

987
00:52:58,280 --> 00:53:01,880
Speaker 1: data plans for tablet owner right, which is you know.

988
00:53:01,960 --> 00:53:04,560
Speaker 1: That's they're just seeing that more and more tablet owners

989
00:53:04,600 --> 00:53:07,480
Speaker 1: are are subscribing to these these data plans through a

990
00:53:07,600 --> 00:53:10,680
Speaker 1: T and T, which is both good news and bad news.

991
00:53:10,719 --> 00:53:14,040
Speaker 1: It's good news because it's a growing industry, it's a

992
00:53:14,080 --> 00:53:17,480
Speaker 1: growing business, and it's growing market. The bad news is

993
00:53:17,560 --> 00:53:20,280
Speaker 1: it's not as profitable as some of their other businesses.

994
00:53:20,320 --> 00:53:23,280
Speaker 1: So while it's growing, it's not creating the same revenue

995
00:53:23,320 --> 00:53:25,399
Speaker 1: generation as some of their other businesses. And that's also

996
00:53:25,400 --> 00:53:28,000
Speaker 1: partially due to the fact that smaller wireless companies like

997
00:53:28,040 --> 00:53:31,920
Speaker 1: T Mobile and Sprint are providing really steep competition through

998
00:53:32,200 --> 00:53:36,040
Speaker 1: the price competitions. That remind me competition through competitions. Yes,

999
00:53:36,080 --> 00:53:39,960
Speaker 1: that was very competitive pricing. I mean it's it's the

1000
00:53:40,040 --> 00:53:42,520
Speaker 1: kind of price wars that remind me of that long

1001
00:53:42,560 --> 00:53:46,520
Speaker 1: distance exactly. It's like like A T T had a

1002
00:53:46,640 --> 00:53:51,920
Speaker 1: quick uh head start with the iPhone and iPad stuff,

1003
00:53:52,440 --> 00:53:55,400
Speaker 1: and then uh, now the other companies, in order to

1004
00:53:55,440 --> 00:53:58,920
Speaker 1: make up for that that head start, have offered really

1005
00:53:59,000 --> 00:54:03,200
Speaker 1: competitive pricing, which means A T and T either has

1006
00:54:03,280 --> 00:54:06,120
Speaker 1: to follow suit or find some other way of making

1007
00:54:06,160 --> 00:54:12,400
Speaker 1: their service so attractive that the the higher prices feels

1008
00:54:12,400 --> 00:54:16,120
Speaker 1: worthwhile to the consumer right um. Also, just this month,

1009
00:54:16,200 --> 00:54:18,880
Speaker 1: the FCC adopted an agreement between A T and T

1010
00:54:19,120 --> 00:54:21,960
Speaker 1: Dish Network Corporation, and a bunch of other smaller wireless

1011
00:54:22,000 --> 00:54:26,080
Speaker 1: companies to help regulate more wireless bandwidths. And that's because

1012
00:54:26,080 --> 00:54:28,439
Speaker 1: A T and T currently owns a band of frequencies

1013
00:54:28,560 --> 00:54:31,600
Speaker 1: in in a one of those powerful signal like seven

1014
00:54:32,000 --> 00:54:35,680
Speaker 1: hurts kind of kind of bands, and their their concession

1015
00:54:35,719 --> 00:54:38,719
Speaker 1: to this plan will let smaller local providers get better

1016
00:54:38,760 --> 00:54:42,200
Speaker 1: access to the to the band, which should encourage manufacturers

1017
00:54:42,200 --> 00:54:44,400
Speaker 1: to make and sell more phones for that range and

1018
00:54:44,480 --> 00:54:49,120
Speaker 1: also give customers more options. And which wireless provider to adopttcha,

1019
00:54:49,280 --> 00:54:52,480
Speaker 1: So A T and T owns a band that's adjacent

1020
00:54:52,600 --> 00:54:56,040
Speaker 1: to this other one and it's sort of an interoperability

1021
00:54:56,160 --> 00:54:59,560
Speaker 1: kind of approach absolutely, And and addition, network is related

1022
00:54:59,600 --> 00:55:03,000
Speaker 1: to that because they are also trying to um decrease

1023
00:55:03,120 --> 00:55:04,920
Speaker 1: the strength of the signal that they are using in

1024
00:55:05,000 --> 00:55:07,920
Speaker 1: order to allow other carriers to horn in on it

1025
00:55:08,000 --> 00:55:10,680
Speaker 1: here and there. So I mean, this could be a

1026
00:55:10,680 --> 00:55:13,600
Speaker 1: deal that could work out really well for everyone, and

1027
00:55:13,920 --> 00:55:17,160
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes. And that

1028
00:55:17,200 --> 00:55:19,960
Speaker 1: wraps up this classic episode of tech Stuff. Hope you

1029
00:55:20,000 --> 00:55:23,360
Speaker 1: guys enjoyed it. If you have any suggestions for topics

1030
00:55:23,360 --> 00:55:26,040
Speaker 1: I should cover on current episodes of tech Stuff, reach

1031
00:55:26,080 --> 00:55:28,640
Speaker 1: out to me on Twitter. The handle is tech stuff

1032
00:55:28,800 --> 00:55:31,839
Speaker 1: h s W and I'll talk to you again really soon.

1033
00:55:32,400 --> 00:55:39,400
Speaker 1: Y text Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. For

1034
00:55:39,520 --> 00:55:42,480
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart

1035
00:55:42,560 --> 00:55:45,719
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

1036
00:55:45,800 --> 00:55:46,480
Speaker 1: favorite shows.