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Speaker 1: Get in Touch with technology was tex Stuff from house

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Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com. Hey then, everyone, and welcome to

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Speaker 1: text Stuff. I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Lauren and we

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Speaker 1: are going to conclude our mega epic series on A

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Speaker 1: T and T, the the company that UH that could

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Speaker 1: because it was the only one that could and uh

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Speaker 1: which the government had something to say about several times. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So in our last episode we concluded with the two,

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Speaker 1: which was the end of the jurisdiction between the Department

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Speaker 1: of Justice and A T and T. The ruling was

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Speaker 1: that A T. T had to divest itself of the

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Speaker 1: regional operating carriers, the bell companies that had so so

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Speaker 1: so that was that was when mob Bell split into

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Speaker 1: several baby bells. Yeah, they were all I think there

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Speaker 1: was something like seven regional major regional operating carriers and

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Speaker 1: A T and T. The The deal was that A T.

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Speaker 1: T was getting out of the local telephone business and

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Speaker 1: concentrating solely on on providing service for a long distance

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Speaker 1: as well as getting into the burgeoning computer industry, right,

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Speaker 1: which would be very important or will be very important

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Speaker 1: for this current episode that we are about to embark ponds.

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Speaker 1: This is uh. I titled this in my notes as

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Speaker 1: part three getting to the bit that we're in now,

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Speaker 1: because I'm great at titles. So that brings us up

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Speaker 1: to three. When A T and T opens the first

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Speaker 1: commercial cellular telephone system in the telephone system, that was

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Speaker 1: an interesting emphosis on that salable in the United States

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Speaker 1: in Chicago under Ameritech, which was soon to be divested

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Speaker 1: from A T and T according to those rules that

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Speaker 1: we talked about laid down in the nineteen two settlement

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Speaker 1: of the antitrust lawsuit, but at that time in Merritech

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Speaker 1: was still under A T and T. Because again, it

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Speaker 1: takes time to actually act upon these these judgments. So

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Speaker 1: here we have the first cellular telephone system for commercial use,

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Speaker 1: and uh yeah, this cellular approach was uh something that

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Speaker 1: really made mobile telephones possible because if you remember from

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Speaker 1: our last episode, A T and T had created mobile phones,

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Speaker 1: but they would connect to a specific radio antenna and

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Speaker 1: you had to be within range to use it, and

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Speaker 1: if you moved out of range, that was it. Your

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Speaker 1: call would just end. Um. Cellular telephones had a bunch

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Speaker 1: of towers that would allow you to move within and

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Speaker 1: out of range of various towers. There was kind of

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Speaker 1: a handshake and electronic handshake involved where you would continue

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Speaker 1: to get service even as you moved out of one

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Speaker 1: tower's operating area into another. And all of this technology

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Speaker 1: was thanks to advancements that came out of a T

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Speaker 1: and T Labs. Basically that it's it's that that handshake

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Speaker 1: that Jonathan is is talking about. You know, let's let's

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Speaker 1: the cells automatically transfer call from one tower to the

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Speaker 1: next as as a caller moves through them. And yep,

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Speaker 1: that came out of what was formerly or I guess

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Speaker 1: currently at that very moment still Bell Labs, but would

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Speaker 1: very soon become a T and T Labs. Yeah, so

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Speaker 1: it's um one of those one of those crazy develop

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Speaker 1: elements that gives us the ability to use technology the

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Speaker 1: way we do today. Just imagine if we had not

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Speaker 1: come up with that, if a T and T had

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

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Speaker 1: it had been delayed several years, we'd be in a

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Speaker 1: very different world right now. So it was pretty amazing

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Speaker 1: stuff that that same year, a researcher at a T

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Speaker 1: and T named Beyond Strew Strip which I'm sure I

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Speaker 1: mispronounced this name. Turn they did not look it up.

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Speaker 1: I didn't even write his name in my notes because

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Speaker 1: I was unwilling to try to pronounce it. He debuted

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

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Speaker 1: much better than C it got two pluses. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: C plus plus is an object oriented programming language that

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Speaker 1: came out of the Bell Labs development laboratory. So that's

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Speaker 1: a little more redundant. In January one four, it's early, y'all.

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Speaker 1: So in January one that's when Bell system ceases to

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Speaker 1: be Yes, this is the official end of everything that

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Speaker 1: that needed to end according to those agreements from right.

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Speaker 1: So now we've gotten the boy where A T and

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

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Speaker 1: own entity. UH. It retains long distance operations as well

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Speaker 1: as the R and D labs and manufacturing, so all

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Speaker 1: of that belongs under the umbrella of A T and T.

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Speaker 1: And then all that local services handled by those seven

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Speaker 1: divested regional building brakes companies and UH that year, Equal

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Speaker 1: Access Carrier Selection begins, which is a ruling by the

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

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

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Speaker 1: when 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 as they had I mean A T.

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Speaker 1: T went from having nearly a hundred and fifty billion

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Speaker 1: in assets before the breakup to thirty four billion after

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Speaker 1: after this mob Bell to baby Bell break up, which

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Speaker 1: is sevent drop an asset value, which is pretty alarming

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Speaker 1: when you're a giant company. Um and so, so competitors

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Speaker 1: at the time like Sprint and m c I were

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Speaker 1: pricing to undersell A T and T pretty seriously. You

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Speaker 1: guys might remember some of the commercials that were coming

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Speaker 1: out around that time of just the crazy backbiting price

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Speaker 1: war stuff that was going on. And remember, you know,

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Speaker 1: m c I was the company that had led the

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Speaker 1: charge against A T and T back in the seventies

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Speaker 1: that eventually evolved into that antitrust lawsuit. So this is

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Speaker 1: you know, A T. T said that it's because of

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Speaker 1: improvements in service, but in reality, I think we can

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Speaker 1: say that this was so that they could remain competitive

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Speaker 1: now that it was more of a level playing ground

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Speaker 1: in the long distance space, and if they didn't lower

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Speaker 1: their prices then they had a real risk of losing

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Speaker 1: their customers. The you know, these these two competitors and

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Speaker 1: and others as well, would would take huge gnawing bytes

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Speaker 1: out of A T and T over the next several years.

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Speaker 1: But um nonethless would see a six increase in long

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Speaker 1: distance calling between now and now being over the next

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Speaker 1: fifteen years. So, you know, long distance was still a

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Speaker 1: very major thing because wireless didn't exist. We hadn't really

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Speaker 1: moved on to a post long distance world. I can't

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Speaker 1: remember the last time I was charged for a long

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

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Speaker 1: about two thousand one for me. Wow, So did everyone

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Speaker 1: just move near you? Or was that when things changed?

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Speaker 1: That's when I got a cell phone? Oh got you

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Speaker 1: all right, Yeah, that's about when I did too. I'm sure,

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Speaker 1: I think maybe a lot earlier. It's hard for me

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Speaker 1: to remember years ago by so quickly. Alright, So between

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

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Speaker 1: that I thought was its uff happened. I just didn't

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Speaker 1: fin anything I found particularly noteworthy to add in my notes.

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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 at a 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 eight T Labs began working

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Speaker 1: on hd t V, specifically on the kind of high

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Speaker 1: speed signal processing problems that arise when a computer needs to,

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Speaker 1: you know, receive de code and display a large amount

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Speaker 1: of data in real time. But this is pretty impressive

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Speaker 1: for those of you who are HDTV enthusiasts. Here in

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

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Speaker 1: got earlier start in Japan. Uh, and it took a

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

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Speaker 1: standards guiding h d t V because obviously you need

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Speaker 1: to be able to have all the different players involved

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Speaker 1: working on those same set of standards. The delivery of

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Speaker 1: the quality of the signal needs to be correct. The

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Speaker 1: manufacturers need to be working on a similar approach. So

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Speaker 1: this was very early on. Then A T and T

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Speaker 1: was looking at this is saying this is going to

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

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Speaker 1: not gonna be a thing for maybe ten years, but

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Speaker 1: we need to work on it now. It would also

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Speaker 1: turn out to be pretty forward thinking for them, because

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Speaker 1: they would wind up getting pretty seriously into the cable

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Speaker 1: industry in just another few years, right forward, thinking hand.

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Speaker 1: For some reason, I love that phrase. Bell Labs also

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Speaker 1: was working at that time on a speech actuated manipulator

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Speaker 1: also known as SAM oh right, Yeah, and that that

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Speaker 1: would that would become kind of important in another couple

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Speaker 1: of years as well. Yeah, it's kind of neat. This

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Speaker 1: was like an early approach to trying to create a

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Speaker 1: robot that could respond to natural language commands, so things

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Speaker 1: like turn left or lower your arm, that kind of thing. Uh,

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Speaker 1: And it was just really the early days sort of

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Speaker 1: a proof of concept to create robots that could do.

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Speaker 1: This also meant that they were working very hard on

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Speaker 1: improving just natural language recognition, which is that's incredibly difficult.

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Speaker 1: It's hard to teach a computer that, you know, we

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Speaker 1: can say the same command a hundred different ways. For

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Speaker 1: the computer to be able to interpret all one hundred

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Speaker 1: of those variations as a single command and differentiate it

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Speaker 1: from every other command is phenomenal. Yeah, especially in English,

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Speaker 1: which is pretty messy in really wonderful ways. When we

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Speaker 1: start being an idiom, that's really like wave it around

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Speaker 1: like you just don't care that robot is going to

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Speaker 1: have some trouble. First of all, it doesn't care. Robots

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Speaker 1: don't care. They don't care. They don't that robot program

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Speaker 1: to pretend to care. Yeah, that's about as good as

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Speaker 1: we can get. I mean it's yeah, I've known some

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Speaker 1: people that way too, so I'm not going to speak

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Speaker 1: down to robots too much. Um. Now, moving on to nine,

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Speaker 1: that's when A T and T acquired in CR Corporation,

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Speaker 1: which is a computer manufacturing company. I think with this

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Speaker 1: they were really hoping to start hopping that that software

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Speaker 1: hardware divide or or I guess it's the networking hardware

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Speaker 1: divide more so they again we're looking forward to too, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: to really get in that, but I mean that that

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Speaker 1: was one of the things that they were allowed to

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Speaker 1: do now after that two judgment. Uh, and this was

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Speaker 1: kind of a real serious move into that space. Um.

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Speaker 1: In two, they unveiled the Voice English Spanish Translator or VEST,

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Speaker 1: which was first developed back in but it was first

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Speaker 1: unveiled in ninety two, so they're still working on those

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Speaker 1: improvements to voice technology. He could recognize about four hundred

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Speaker 1: fifty words and around a billion different combinations. And the

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Speaker 1: way it would work is that you would speak into

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Speaker 1: the microphone. The software 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: and Spanish or Spanish to English via text. What it

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

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

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Speaker 1: who 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: a sense down, you can involve multiple parts of a sentence, again,

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Speaker 1: especially in English, where your ward order is not perhaps

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: for human computer interaction. In A T and T merged

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Speaker 1: with maccaw Cellular Communications Incorporated, which at that time was

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

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Speaker 1: So that acquisition eventually means that the the entity that

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Speaker 1: was McCaw Cellular Communications becomes A T T Wireless along

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Speaker 1: with another company will mention in a bit, But that

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Speaker 1: same year, A T and t also introduced the Model

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Speaker 1: seventy video phone. Yeah, that was kind of a video

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Speaker 1: teleconferencing hardware. And you know that they had had such

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Speaker 1: rousing lack of success with their picture phone that that

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Speaker 1: but but but they realized that people were more willing

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Speaker 1: to do this a and an work environment and be

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Speaker 1: on a computer than they were on a phone. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so this was allowing simultaneous video transmission, so that it

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Speaker 1: kind of predecessor to the video software we used today

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Speaker 1: for things like Skype or other Google hangouts, those kind

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Speaker 1: of video hangout things. It also would allow some limited

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Speaker 1: use of letting, like the person who's calling you manipulate

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Speaker 1: files so you can open the files within it and

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Speaker 1: have so it's kind of like a video conferencing system

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Speaker 1: very early on, So pretty impressive considering. Yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: you know, that's we're still talking like this is still

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Speaker 1: the very early days of the Worldwide Web. Keep in mind,

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Speaker 1: you out that that really hadn't even launched till nine two.

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Speaker 1: So seeing some video communication stuff in ninety three was exciting.

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Speaker 1: You know, I can remember the first time I ever

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Speaker 1: saw any kind of video communication. I remember exactly what

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Speaker 1: I was doing. What what were you doing. I was

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Speaker 1: at the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow or EPCUT as

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Speaker 1: it is called now it's no longer known as its

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Speaker 1: full name. So they used to have these consoles mounted

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Speaker 1: on columns where you could walk up to the consoles. Yeah, hello,

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Speaker 1: touchscreen interface, You press a button and then you would

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Speaker 1: get greeted by a cast member who would ask what

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Speaker 1: what you needed, and you could ask them anything that

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Speaker 1: had to do with the parks. Eventually you could do

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Speaker 1: things like even uh, dining reservations. That way, you could

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Speaker 1: say I would like to eat at Mexico at noon,

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Speaker 1: and they would they would make that Mexico being the

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Speaker 1: pavilion in the World Showcase. It wouldn't. Actually 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

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Speaker 1: T and T Corp. Or corporation. I mean the corporation

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Speaker 1: stays the same, Yeah, but it was just a T

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Speaker 1: and T. So now it's as telegraphs were no longer

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Speaker 1: a thing. Kind of like when you look at certain

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Speaker 1: names that used to mean one thing. Now it's just

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Speaker 1: the initials. So you might ask, like, what does AMC mean?

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Speaker 1: And it used to me in American movie classics. Now

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Speaker 1: it's just a m C. That's just the name. So,

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Speaker 1: same sort of thing. So moving up to n IF,

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Speaker 1: that's when a T and T restructures into three separate companies.

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Speaker 1: So one of them is a T and T. That's

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Speaker 1: the services company. It's the one that we all know

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Speaker 1: and are familiar with. The second one becomes Lucent Technologies.

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Speaker 1: Now that is a products and systems company. Uh, it's

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Speaker 1: really kind of a manufacturing company for certain types of electronics.

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Speaker 1: And the third is a computer company that returns to

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Speaker 1: the NCR name. You know, they purchased NCR just a

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Speaker 1: few years earlier, and Loosen and n c R eventually

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Speaker 1: both spin off as their own companies. Uh. The following year,

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Speaker 1: in fact, we got a little bit more we want

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Speaker 1: to say about the following year. But before we do that,

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Speaker 1: let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor. You've

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Speaker 1: I recommend checking out, at least the first season anyway,

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Speaker 1: is Heroes. It was one of those takes on television

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Speaker 1: of creating a superhero show, uh if superheroes were somehow

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

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

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Speaker 1: that's thing that I will watch, you know, I'll just

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Speaker 1: do a marathon session, sit down and just watch episode

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: So it's back to nineteen nineties six. That's when the

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Speaker 1: Telecommunications Act of nineteen becomes law. You know, I was

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

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

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Speaker 1: but it published in nine and they thought it 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 yeah, because again it was it

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: another challenge that that we're still struggling with today because

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Speaker 1: you know, it's it's getting very messy. If one person

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Speaker 1: owns all the roads but allows everybody to play on

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Speaker 1: those roads, net neutrality is maintained and everyone's happy, but

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Speaker 1: if everyone owns all the roads and also owns a

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Speaker 1: lot of the busses that go on those roads, and

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Speaker 1: then decides to let those buses get the express lane

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Speaker 1: and everyone else gets the slowly, that's when you start

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Speaker 1: getting into problems. So the Telecommunications Act of nineteen was

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Speaker 1: sort of a predecessor to some of the acts and

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Speaker 1: some of the proposed legislation that would follow to try

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Speaker 1: and maintain net neutrality. Um, and of course that's like

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Speaker 1: I said, that's a battle that's still ongoing to this day.

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Speaker 1: That's when A T and T signs a merger agreement

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Speaker 1: with T c I, which was a cable company. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they were also working at the time on converting their

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Speaker 1: entire network from analog to digital data delivery. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: in nineteen, if you remember from our last podcast, this

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Speaker 1: is actually when that final electro mechanical switch was switched

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Speaker 1: over to computerized switch. I bet there was a big ceremony.

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Speaker 1: I hope that electro mechanical switches enjoying retirement. But A T.

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Speaker 1: T also went back to the consumer local telephone business

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Speaker 1: because it introduced a residential service in New York. So

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Speaker 1: first time A T and T gets into the local

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Speaker 1: telephone service since it had divested itself of those regional

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Speaker 1: bell companies back in two right. Um, they also complet

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Speaker 1: did that merger with t c I and started looking

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Speaker 1: to acquire a second cable company called Media One. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they're really serious about now. And they also rolled out

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Speaker 1: the largest DSL initiative in the industry for broadband customers.

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Speaker 1: I was never a DSL customer. I was always a

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Speaker 1: cable modem customer. But I've got a lot of friends

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Speaker 1: who used DSL for both voice and data, and uh yeah,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: and so they were kind of they were kind of stared. 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 A T and D started

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

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

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Speaker 1: all 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 are 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

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Speaker 1: really because there have been quantum computers built, they just

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Speaker 1: don't last very long. A cubit can act in superposition,

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

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Speaker 1: in between at the same time simultaneously. So theoretically you

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Speaker 1: can use a significantly powerful quantum computer. It has to

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Speaker 1: have a certain number of cubits for this to be viable,

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Speaker 1: but you can use a a powerful quantum computer to

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Speaker 1: solve certain types of problems much more quickly than you

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Speaker 1: would with a classical computer. Not all problems would be

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Speaker 1: great in a quantum computer, but if it's a problem,

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Speaker 1: for example, trying to figure out which two enormous prime

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Speaker 1: numbers were multiplied together to get this particular product, a

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Speaker 1: quantum computer can do that way faster than a classical computer.

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Speaker 1: Classical computer might take hundreds of years to solve a

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Speaker 1: particularly difficult problem. A quantum computer might do it in

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Speaker 1: a in an hour. And it's all because it's able

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Speaker 1: to solve I'm oversimplifying, but it's able to solve multiple

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00:22:55,359 --> 00:22:58,200
Speaker 1: versions of the the problem all at the same time,

433
00:22:58,240 --> 00:23:01,399
Speaker 1: and then assign probabilities to which one is the correct answer.

434
00:23:01,840 --> 00:23:03,600
Speaker 1: So A T and T was looking into that as

435
00:23:03,640 --> 00:23:07,800
Speaker 1: early as n so two thousand. Uh all right, Well,

436
00:23:07,800 --> 00:23:09,720
Speaker 1: now they've got the acquisitions of T C I and

437
00:23:09,880 --> 00:23:12,280
Speaker 1: Media One, which makes A T n T the largest

438
00:23:12,359 --> 00:23:15,680
Speaker 1: cable company in the United states. Um, the service is

439
00:23:15,720 --> 00:23:18,680
Speaker 1: called A T and T Broadband, and a T and

440
00:23:18,720 --> 00:23:22,680
Speaker 1: T itself reorganizes again into three major companies. So you've

441
00:23:22,680 --> 00:23:25,280
Speaker 1: got a T and T, A T and T Wireless,

442
00:23:25,359 --> 00:23:28,640
Speaker 1: and a T and T Broadband. And uh, that's also

443
00:23:28,720 --> 00:23:32,080
Speaker 1: the year when data traffic overtakes voice traffic on the

444
00:23:32,119 --> 00:23:35,000
Speaker 1: A T and T network for the first time. UM.

445
00:23:35,040 --> 00:23:39,479
Speaker 1: Not surprising, but I'm sure now there's way more data

446
00:23:39,520 --> 00:23:42,800
Speaker 1: than voice. Has to be overwhelming at this point. Even

447
00:23:42,800 --> 00:23:45,360
Speaker 1: though these these acquisitions of T C I Media one

448
00:23:45,480 --> 00:23:47,680
Speaker 1: were really terrific for A T and T and moving

449
00:23:47,720 --> 00:23:50,320
Speaker 1: them in in a direction that the company thought was

450
00:23:50,359 --> 00:23:52,200
Speaker 1: going to be really great. That they spent over a

451
00:23:52,280 --> 00:23:55,719
Speaker 1: hundred billion on those acquisitions, and they had kind of

452
00:23:55,720 --> 00:23:58,560
Speaker 1: gone into debt in order to do so. Um. You know,

453
00:23:58,600 --> 00:24:01,159
Speaker 1: the company was in a little bit of trouble and

454
00:24:01,160 --> 00:24:04,360
Speaker 1: they were hoping by by separating out into these three

455
00:24:04,400 --> 00:24:06,280
Speaker 1: separate services that they were going to be able to

456
00:24:06,480 --> 00:24:10,439
Speaker 1: isolate that debt and also you know, hopefully raised some

457
00:24:10,480 --> 00:24:13,680
Speaker 1: funds on the stock market, which the folks running the

458
00:24:13,680 --> 00:24:16,760
Speaker 1: stock market kind of picked up on. They sort of

459
00:24:16,800 --> 00:24:19,480
Speaker 1: saw through this clever plan and UM and the company

460
00:24:19,520 --> 00:24:22,040
Speaker 1: would wind up losing another hundred billion of market value

461
00:24:22,040 --> 00:24:25,439
Speaker 1: over the next couple of years UM. So, so the

462
00:24:25,440 --> 00:24:29,440
Speaker 1: company was not doing I mean, it was moving in

463
00:24:29,440 --> 00:24:33,040
Speaker 1: interesting ways, and I think that, you know, doing clever stuff.

464
00:24:33,560 --> 00:24:36,960
Speaker 1: But in the long term the moves they made were

465
00:24:37,040 --> 00:24:39,720
Speaker 1: good choices. But in the short term it meant that

466
00:24:39,800 --> 00:24:43,080
Speaker 1: they suffered quite a bit because you know, we were

467
00:24:43,480 --> 00:24:45,679
Speaker 1: We've talked about how a T and T it was

468
00:24:45,840 --> 00:24:49,720
Speaker 1: built on the foundation of long distance telephone service. When

469
00:24:49,760 --> 00:24:53,879
Speaker 1: that stops becoming a way of generating significant revenue, it

470
00:24:53,920 --> 00:24:58,399
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily matter if your company has diversified, uh, if

471
00:24:58,440 --> 00:25:01,440
Speaker 1: everyone still identifies your company as being a long long

472
00:25:01,440 --> 00:25:05,359
Speaker 1: distance service provider. Right. Also, you know, up until that point,

473
00:25:05,920 --> 00:25:08,399
Speaker 1: they had been they had been depending on long distance

474
00:25:08,480 --> 00:25:10,919
Speaker 1: profits to drive the company. But but long distance was

475
00:25:11,000 --> 00:25:13,919
Speaker 1: losing revenue um at a rate of each year. Yes,

476
00:25:14,040 --> 00:25:17,679
Speaker 1: so it was obvious that they had to start really

477
00:25:17,720 --> 00:25:22,080
Speaker 1: investigating other opportunities. So this broadband opportunity was a chance

478
00:25:22,119 --> 00:25:25,679
Speaker 1: for them to kind of really shift major gears in

479
00:25:25,920 --> 00:25:30,280
Speaker 1: what their company is all about and remain a viable

480
00:25:30,400 --> 00:25:33,760
Speaker 1: company because I mean, you know, fear is a great motivator.

481
00:25:33,800 --> 00:25:35,720
Speaker 1: As it turns out, if you're scared, then you you're

482
00:25:35,760 --> 00:25:40,080
Speaker 1: willing to try some some pretty uh, pretty radical things. Yeah,

483
00:25:40,080 --> 00:25:42,399
Speaker 1: and in this case, they really went in broadband, and

484
00:25:42,440 --> 00:25:44,800
Speaker 1: it turns out that it wasn't you know, it wasn't

485
00:25:44,800 --> 00:25:47,280
Speaker 1: a bad idea. In fact, two thousand also was the

486
00:25:47,440 --> 00:25:50,520
Speaker 1: year when a T and T saw more data traffic

487
00:25:50,600 --> 00:25:52,800
Speaker 1: than voice traffic on their network. It was the first

488
00:25:52,800 --> 00:25:55,840
Speaker 1: time that had ever happened. I wouldn't be surprised if

489
00:25:55,920 --> 00:25:59,800
Speaker 1: that is, you know, obviously multiplied many times now because

490
00:26:00,040 --> 00:26:02,640
Speaker 1: look at the enormous amount of data that transfers through

491
00:26:02,680 --> 00:26:05,119
Speaker 1: whether and your calls aren't usually taking up quite as

492
00:26:05,200 --> 00:26:09,240
Speaker 1: much as like YouTube video and you've got you've got

493
00:26:09,240 --> 00:26:11,720
Speaker 1: file transfers. I mean that that takes up a lot

494
00:26:11,760 --> 00:26:14,760
Speaker 1: of space. So I'm sure that that might have even

495
00:26:14,800 --> 00:26:17,959
Speaker 1: been the last year that they saw, you know, or

496
00:26:18,040 --> 00:26:21,600
Speaker 1: maybe the last year they saw voice traffic being greater

497
00:26:21,640 --> 00:26:25,719
Speaker 1: than data traffic. Would not be surprised. Two thousand one, however,

498
00:26:25,880 --> 00:26:28,960
Speaker 1: that's when a T and T Wireless becomes an independent company.

499
00:26:28,960 --> 00:26:31,880
Speaker 1: It spends off from a T and T. Uh, it's

500
00:26:31,880 --> 00:26:35,560
Speaker 1: a it's initial public offering, which you know is is

501
00:26:35,800 --> 00:26:38,680
Speaker 1: stock market terms for for going public and selling shares.

502
00:26:38,720 --> 00:26:41,720
Speaker 1: It's like a debutante ball for stock like that. It

503
00:26:41,760 --> 00:26:44,840
Speaker 1: was the largest I PO in American history at the time. Yeah, yeah,

504
00:26:45,240 --> 00:26:48,320
Speaker 1: big deal. And also that was the year when Comcast

505
00:26:48,480 --> 00:26:51,600
Speaker 1: offered to acquire a T and T broadband, and a

506
00:26:51,680 --> 00:26:54,040
Speaker 1: T and T said, you know what, we will accept

507
00:26:54,040 --> 00:26:58,439
Speaker 1: your kind office, sir, thank you. UM all all of

508
00:26:58,480 --> 00:27:02,119
Speaker 1: this hullabaloo over over, you know, kind of diverging and

509
00:27:02,440 --> 00:27:04,919
Speaker 1: trying to split stuff up and manage their debt didn't

510
00:27:04,960 --> 00:27:08,800
Speaker 1: prevent innovation. Later that year, their customer service system, how

511
00:27:08,800 --> 00:27:12,880
Speaker 1: may I help you debuted more natural language more natural

512
00:27:12,920 --> 00:27:15,399
Speaker 1: language stuff, which I think is probably the point that

513
00:27:15,400 --> 00:27:17,160
Speaker 1: they were trying to come to with all of these

514
00:27:17,200 --> 00:27:20,600
Speaker 1: previous natural language related I mean, maybe not the specific point,

515
00:27:20,600 --> 00:27:21,760
Speaker 1: but they were like, hey, you know what would be

516
00:27:21,800 --> 00:27:25,080
Speaker 1: really useful for this um as an excellent application. So yeah.

517
00:27:25,080 --> 00:27:27,240
Speaker 1: The idea is that when you call in, you get

518
00:27:27,280 --> 00:27:31,400
Speaker 1: a automated response. So it's not an actual quote, real

519
00:27:31,520 --> 00:27:34,640
Speaker 1: human being on the other end, uh end quote. It's

520
00:27:34,840 --> 00:27:37,840
Speaker 1: rather a kind of robot. But they try and have

521
00:27:38,040 --> 00:27:41,840
Speaker 1: as realistic a synthetic voice as possible, and the goal

522
00:27:42,000 --> 00:27:45,280
Speaker 1: is to allow the customer to use whatever language that

523
00:27:45,400 --> 00:27:48,920
Speaker 1: he or she needs to express the problem they're having

524
00:27:49,359 --> 00:27:51,399
Speaker 1: and then it can respond to that. So instead of

525
00:27:51,440 --> 00:27:54,919
Speaker 1: having you wait through a menu where you know, for

526
00:27:55,400 --> 00:27:59,520
Speaker 1: telephone service, press one, for a cable press two, you

527
00:27:59,520 --> 00:28:00,920
Speaker 1: know that kind of thing, you would just say, you

528
00:28:00,920 --> 00:28:03,400
Speaker 1: can hypothetically just talk to the robot and I could

529
00:28:03,400 --> 00:28:05,240
Speaker 1: just be things like, uh, you know, when I call

530
00:28:05,480 --> 00:28:07,119
Speaker 1: usually it's early in the morning, so there's things like

531
00:28:07,240 --> 00:28:12,479
Speaker 1: cable down fixed, now fire bad. Personally, I kind of

532
00:28:12,640 --> 00:28:14,800
Speaker 1: missed the days when I could just punch buttons and

533
00:28:14,840 --> 00:28:16,879
Speaker 1: not have to pretend to talk to a robot. I

534
00:28:17,359 --> 00:28:19,200
Speaker 1: sort of get angry when I talked to rot I

535
00:28:19,240 --> 00:28:21,160
Speaker 1: wind up yelling at them. The fact that we're able

536
00:28:21,200 --> 00:28:23,800
Speaker 1: to get Lauren and in front of a microphone at

537
00:28:23,800 --> 00:28:29,600
Speaker 1: all is a miracle. Every week, uh mostly involves applying

538
00:28:29,680 --> 00:28:33,560
Speaker 1: her with chocolate. Are you suggesting that you are a robot? Oh? Yeah?

539
00:28:33,600 --> 00:28:36,919
Speaker 1: And so the company also launched Natural Voices, which is

540
00:28:37,040 --> 00:28:40,720
Speaker 1: that synthesized voice program. So it was a combination of

541
00:28:40,760 --> 00:28:44,720
Speaker 1: the natural language recognition software and this new synthesized human

542
00:28:44,800 --> 00:28:46,800
Speaker 1: voice that was meant to be as close to a

543
00:28:46,880 --> 00:28:49,600
Speaker 1: natural voice as possible, so it doesn't sound like you're

544
00:28:49,600 --> 00:28:51,680
Speaker 1: speaking to a robot or someone who puts the wrong

545
00:28:51,760 --> 00:28:54,680
Speaker 1: embossis on the wrong salabl um. I don't know if

546
00:28:54,720 --> 00:28:57,000
Speaker 1: you've ever had one of those calls where it's like, hello,

547
00:28:57,520 --> 00:29:04,040
Speaker 1: thank you for calling service, you know, on Tuesday. Yeah,

548
00:29:04,040 --> 00:29:06,640
Speaker 1: it's just weird. So you know, getting that to be

549
00:29:06,680 --> 00:29:10,080
Speaker 1: more natural obviously creates a better customer experience for most people,

550
00:29:10,120 --> 00:29:13,040
Speaker 1: I would say. Of course, they were also around that

551
00:29:13,160 --> 00:29:17,680
Speaker 1: time working on a bunch of greater greater network related issues.

552
00:29:18,240 --> 00:29:22,160
Speaker 1: In two thousand two, they rolled out yeah new optical

553
00:29:22,280 --> 00:29:26,360
Speaker 1: network which was the idea of the optical network was

554
00:29:26,400 --> 00:29:30,000
Speaker 1: to decrease the problems that would arise in the event

555
00:29:30,120 --> 00:29:32,959
Speaker 1: of a natural disaster or a massive failure. So it's

556
00:29:33,000 --> 00:29:37,080
Speaker 1: kind of a response emergency response for an infrastructure, meaning

557
00:29:37,120 --> 00:29:40,880
Speaker 1: that if there were say a hurricane hitting the Eastern

558
00:29:40,880 --> 00:29:43,320
Speaker 1: Cboard and the phone lines went down, this would help

559
00:29:43,440 --> 00:29:47,080
Speaker 1: them respond faster to get that repaired and return service,

560
00:29:47,120 --> 00:29:50,320
Speaker 1: which is obviously important for any kind of emergency situation,

561
00:29:51,320 --> 00:29:54,200
Speaker 1: so very important, and then work. They also worked to

562
00:29:54,240 --> 00:29:58,200
Speaker 1: branch out as an enterprise networking company. Before they had

563
00:29:58,280 --> 00:30:02,040
Speaker 1: really been marketing their their electronics and computer services to

564
00:30:02,480 --> 00:30:05,200
Speaker 1: the average consumer. Now that We're thinking, you know, there's

565
00:30:05,760 --> 00:30:09,280
Speaker 1: huge market in the enterprise world where we can we

566
00:30:09,320 --> 00:30:12,480
Speaker 1: can market directly to other large companies and say, let

567
00:30:12,560 --> 00:30:15,200
Speaker 1: us handle these systems for you. We know what we're doing,

568
00:30:15,680 --> 00:30:20,120
Speaker 1: we're experts in this field, and give us money the

569
00:30:20,240 --> 00:30:23,560
Speaker 1: end of that sentence. But yeah. Two thousand three, Uh,

570
00:30:23,600 --> 00:30:27,880
Speaker 1: they rolled out the voice Tone product, which allowed customers

571
00:30:27,920 --> 00:30:30,680
Speaker 1: to speak with computers using natural language. So very similar

572
00:30:30,720 --> 00:30:33,120
Speaker 1: to them may I Help you, but this time this

573
00:30:33,200 --> 00:30:35,720
Speaker 1: was a product that you could get if you were

574
00:30:35,800 --> 00:30:37,680
Speaker 1: an enterprise, for example, and you needed to have that

575
00:30:37,720 --> 00:30:40,200
Speaker 1: same sort of capability. So something that have been developed

576
00:30:40,200 --> 00:30:42,480
Speaker 1: for in house a T and T use or at

577
00:30:42,560 --> 00:30:46,880
Speaker 1: least within their customer service department. Yeah, it's an actual product.

578
00:30:47,440 --> 00:30:50,160
Speaker 1: Always a good idea if you are able to create

579
00:30:50,280 --> 00:30:53,160
Speaker 1: a you know, a usable system for that that's modular

580
00:30:53,200 --> 00:30:57,840
Speaker 1: that other people can use in their own networks. Uh.

581
00:30:57,880 --> 00:31:01,240
Speaker 1: Two thousand four, they introduced Voice over Internet Protocol or

582
00:31:01,600 --> 00:31:06,880
Speaker 1: VOID for customers. This obviously is allowing you to make

583
00:31:07,160 --> 00:31:11,280
Speaker 1: voice phone calls over Internet protocol. So it's using that

584
00:31:11,320 --> 00:31:15,920
Speaker 1: same packet switching kind of software that uh, your regular

585
00:31:15,960 --> 00:31:21,320
Speaker 1: Internet traffic uses, but for voice trend uh. Voice communication. UM,

586
00:31:21,360 --> 00:31:25,480
Speaker 1: I had friends who had voipe call like telephones voice telephones,

587
00:31:25,520 --> 00:31:27,640
Speaker 1: which were The idea was that, you know, using the

588
00:31:27,720 --> 00:31:32,640
Speaker 1: data service was sometimes a cheaper alternative to using voice

589
00:31:32,680 --> 00:31:37,000
Speaker 1: service like regular voice lines. The there are, or at

590
00:31:37,040 --> 00:31:40,840
Speaker 1: least there were some drawbacks with void phones, especially early days,

591
00:31:41,680 --> 00:31:45,280
Speaker 1: involved like if you were to dial in NUM, it

592
00:31:45,280 --> 00:31:47,840
Speaker 1: wouldn't necessarily know to route that call to the closest

593
00:31:49,000 --> 00:31:51,800
Speaker 1: center because yeah, because it it would be over Internet protocol.

594
00:31:51,880 --> 00:31:57,000
Speaker 1: Not Yeah, I might make a call, Yeah might. I

595
00:31:57,040 --> 00:31:59,640
Speaker 1: might make a call in Atlanta and get Tucson, which

596
00:31:59,680 --> 00:32:02,920
Speaker 1: is terribly helpful if my house is on fire, unless

597
00:32:02,960 --> 00:32:04,640
Speaker 1: my house happens to be in Tucson, in which case

598
00:32:04,640 --> 00:32:06,360
Speaker 1: I don't know why I'm in Atlanta making that call.

599
00:32:06,600 --> 00:32:10,800
Speaker 1: Come me neither. Yeah, you know, you know, stranger things. Um.

600
00:32:10,920 --> 00:32:14,160
Speaker 1: Also in two thousand four, company acquired a ten T

601
00:32:14,320 --> 00:32:17,840
Speaker 1: wireless that would be Singular, which was owned by a

602
00:32:17,960 --> 00:32:22,440
Speaker 1: little company called SBC, which is going to become extremely

603
00:32:22,480 --> 00:32:25,960
Speaker 1: important in the next year. Yeah, yeah, why don't we

604
00:32:26,000 --> 00:32:30,240
Speaker 1: just go ahead to two thousand five? So SBC, alright, SBC.

605
00:32:30,520 --> 00:32:32,600
Speaker 1: Now this is one of those companies again that had

606
00:32:32,720 --> 00:32:37,600
Speaker 1: named itself after its initials. So Originally SBC stood for

607
00:32:37,720 --> 00:32:40,360
Speaker 1: something not just not just those letters, right, Yeah, that

608
00:32:40,400 --> 00:32:43,720
Speaker 1: would be Southwestern Bell Company a k a. It was

609
00:32:43,800 --> 00:32:46,560
Speaker 1: one of the baby bells that split off way back

610
00:32:46,640 --> 00:32:50,600
Speaker 1: in two. It started out as the smallest baby bell

611
00:32:50,800 --> 00:32:53,160
Speaker 1: but um but under the lead of a man named

612
00:32:53,320 --> 00:32:56,160
Speaker 1: Ed Whittaker who had been working for Southwestern Bell all

613
00:32:56,200 --> 00:32:58,760
Speaker 1: his life. UM through through a whole lot of a

614
00:32:58,960 --> 00:33:03,280
Speaker 1: very sad the mechinations of his to bring the company

615
00:33:03,360 --> 00:33:06,120
Speaker 1: into all of this data in cable and et cetera

616
00:33:06,200 --> 00:33:09,360
Speaker 1: stuff that A T and T is was trying some

617
00:33:09,560 --> 00:33:13,960
Speaker 1: very wise acquisitions and some very wise other baby bell acquisitions,

618
00:33:14,320 --> 00:33:18,080
Speaker 1: meeting them become the largest baby bell. Yeah. That two

619
00:33:18,160 --> 00:33:21,400
Speaker 1: decision that was handed down to divest A T and

620
00:33:21,400 --> 00:33:25,280
Speaker 1: T of all these properties. Uh, you know, the intent

621
00:33:25,440 --> 00:33:28,120
Speaker 1: was to try and break up these monopolies. SBC had

622
00:33:28,160 --> 00:33:31,560
Speaker 1: been growing year over year and acquiring some of those

623
00:33:31,640 --> 00:33:36,120
Speaker 1: bell operating carriers. Uh. So, the while it avoided a

624
00:33:36,120 --> 00:33:38,040
Speaker 1: monopoly with A T and T at that moment, it

625
00:33:38,160 --> 00:33:41,040
Speaker 1: kind of ended up sort of creating at least, if

626
00:33:41,040 --> 00:33:45,520
Speaker 1: not a monopoly, a mega company in SPC. And then

627
00:33:45,680 --> 00:33:49,240
Speaker 1: in two thousand five, SBC, you know, plays the trump

628
00:33:49,280 --> 00:33:53,360
Speaker 1: card by acquiring A T and T. So the the

629
00:33:53,480 --> 00:33:56,400
Speaker 1: sub company has now become the parent company, although they

630
00:33:56,440 --> 00:33:59,280
Speaker 1: then chose to change their name to A T and T.

631
00:34:00,520 --> 00:34:04,360
Speaker 1: Right um. And this was only a sixteen billion dollar transaction,

632
00:34:04,400 --> 00:34:07,160
Speaker 1: And I mean I feel very silly saying only next

633
00:34:07,200 --> 00:34:09,719
Speaker 1: to sixteen billion, but considering what A T and T

634
00:34:09,800 --> 00:34:11,640
Speaker 1: had been worth in the past, that was a pittance.

635
00:34:11,719 --> 00:34:14,280
Speaker 1: I mean this this was an indicator of how poorly

636
00:34:14,360 --> 00:34:16,680
Speaker 1: the company was doing at the time. By the way,

637
00:34:16,760 --> 00:34:19,520
Speaker 1: if you feel that I am worth only sixteen billion,

638
00:34:19,600 --> 00:34:23,880
Speaker 1: I'll take it right now and do whatever podcast or

639
00:34:23,920 --> 00:34:27,840
Speaker 1: not do whatever podcast you want me to, all right.

640
00:34:27,880 --> 00:34:30,560
Speaker 1: So that's that's uh. In fact, you know what I'm generous.

641
00:34:30,800 --> 00:34:33,200
Speaker 1: You get two for one eight billion apiece. All right.

642
00:34:33,320 --> 00:34:36,320
Speaker 1: So one of A T and T's former regional carriers

643
00:34:36,360 --> 00:34:38,320
Speaker 1: acquired A T and T. That's the story here. It

644
00:34:38,440 --> 00:34:41,239
Speaker 1: reunites those companies. So now we've got long distance and

645
00:34:41,280 --> 00:34:45,280
Speaker 1: regional reunited formally. Keeping mind A T. T had already

646
00:34:45,280 --> 00:34:49,400
Speaker 1: gotten into regional calls again starting with that New York market.

647
00:34:50,040 --> 00:34:53,800
Speaker 1: And UH SBC is now A T and T Incorporated,

648
00:34:54,440 --> 00:34:57,959
Speaker 1: and the company owns around eleven of the twenty four

649
00:34:58,000 --> 00:35:01,360
Speaker 1: bell system companies. Now, keep in mind, regional operating carriers

650
00:35:01,400 --> 00:35:04,560
Speaker 1: were a kind of representative of larger buckets of companies.

651
00:35:04,880 --> 00:35:08,879
Speaker 1: So twenty four total out of the you know that

652
00:35:08,960 --> 00:35:12,319
Speaker 1: fell within the seven regional ones, A T T now

653
00:35:12,360 --> 00:35:14,960
Speaker 1: has eleven of those twenty four backs. So it's not

654
00:35:15,000 --> 00:35:17,000
Speaker 1: as big as it was before the judgment was handed

655
00:35:17,040 --> 00:35:21,520
Speaker 1: down in that case, but it's it's big. It's big again.

656
00:35:22,080 --> 00:35:26,920
Speaker 1: It actually kind of amazes me. I didn't come across anything.

657
00:35:26,920 --> 00:35:28,920
Speaker 1: I didn't really dig deep enough, I think, but I

658
00:35:28,960 --> 00:35:32,200
Speaker 1: didn't come across any news items about whether or not

659
00:35:32,680 --> 00:35:35,160
Speaker 1: there was there were any alarms raised over the fact

660
00:35:35,200 --> 00:35:38,640
Speaker 1: that SBC, a former you know, part of A T

661
00:35:38,719 --> 00:35:40,560
Speaker 1: and T, was now going to acquire A T and

662
00:35:40,600 --> 00:35:46,120
Speaker 1: T and therefore partially negate this judgment. I didn't see anything,

663
00:35:46,160 --> 00:35:48,680
Speaker 1: but then I would imagine there had to have been

664
00:35:48,800 --> 00:35:50,920
Speaker 1: some I I imagine that they had their eye on

665
00:35:50,960 --> 00:35:54,279
Speaker 1: the situation, and I mean they can't not have. I mean,

666
00:35:54,520 --> 00:35:56,840
Speaker 1: the federal government is all up in a ten T

667
00:35:56,960 --> 00:35:59,520
Speaker 1: s fries. Yeah. Yeah, and especially recently. I mean it

668
00:35:59,680 --> 00:36:01,880
Speaker 1: it's but it's kind of funny because we've had this

669
00:36:02,000 --> 00:36:05,120
Speaker 1: story multiple times. We've done three podcasts about a T

670
00:36:05,239 --> 00:36:07,680
Speaker 1: and T and the story of a T T getting

671
00:36:07,680 --> 00:36:09,600
Speaker 1: really big in the government stepping in and saying, hey,

672
00:36:09,680 --> 00:36:12,440
Speaker 1: let's take a look at this, guys, has happened several

673
00:36:12,520 --> 00:36:16,759
Speaker 1: times already. UH, don't know when we're gonna learn that lesson,

674
00:36:16,840 --> 00:36:20,880
Speaker 1: I guess. Anyway, let's let's move on to two thousand seven. Well, okay,

675
00:36:21,160 --> 00:36:23,439
Speaker 1: what one more important point for two thousand five, which

676
00:36:23,440 --> 00:36:25,560
Speaker 1: is going to lead directly into two thousand and seven,

677
00:36:25,600 --> 00:36:28,680
Speaker 1: is that around this time, Steve Jobs began working with Singular,

678
00:36:29,040 --> 00:36:33,920
Speaker 1: which again UM part of SPC, to develop the iPhone

679
00:36:33,960 --> 00:36:37,200
Speaker 1: and features specifically for it, right and then and that

680
00:36:37,360 --> 00:36:41,000
Speaker 1: that agreement included a five year exclusivity agreement, meaning that

681
00:36:41,120 --> 00:36:44,440
Speaker 1: Singular would be the only carrier to carry the iPhone

682
00:36:44,480 --> 00:36:47,640
Speaker 1: for five years, right and uh. In addition to that

683
00:36:47,719 --> 00:36:50,520
Speaker 1: like roughly ten percent of iPhone sales and stores a

684
00:36:50,640 --> 00:36:54,399
Speaker 1: slice of Apple's iTunes revenue um and this was all

685
00:36:54,480 --> 00:36:59,040
Speaker 1: for the development money that Singular Labs was providing, and

686
00:36:59,160 --> 00:37:01,840
Speaker 1: also um for a for a new a new feature

687
00:37:01,880 --> 00:37:05,520
Speaker 1: called visual Voicemail, which would become the consternation of many

688
00:37:05,600 --> 00:37:11,400
Speaker 1: human people several years later, um and uh and and

689
00:37:11,560 --> 00:37:14,359
Speaker 1: revenue sharing agreement that would work out to about ten

690
00:37:14,400 --> 00:37:16,560
Speaker 1: bucks a month for every iPhone customers a T and

691
00:37:16,600 --> 00:37:19,719
Speaker 1: T or singular at that time bill right, So then

692
00:37:20,040 --> 00:37:22,920
Speaker 1: SPC acquires a T and T, SPC becomes a T

693
00:37:23,040 --> 00:37:26,440
Speaker 1: and T Incorporated, which means that the deer becomes a

694
00:37:26,520 --> 00:37:30,279
Speaker 1: T and T essentially again. So that means that the

695
00:37:30,320 --> 00:37:33,440
Speaker 1: iPhone in two thousand seven, when it premiers and blows

696
00:37:33,480 --> 00:37:36,239
Speaker 1: everybody away, Steve Jobs up there on that stage and

697
00:37:36,440 --> 00:37:40,560
Speaker 1: showing off this gorgeous device that everyone didn't know they needed,

698
00:37:40,600 --> 00:37:43,600
Speaker 1: and now we're convinced that absolutely they needed this right now.

699
00:37:43,680 --> 00:37:46,600
Speaker 1: Gosh darn it, um would go exclusively in the United

700
00:37:46,600 --> 00:37:49,440
Speaker 1: States to a T and T, which was a huge

701
00:37:49,560 --> 00:37:52,480
Speaker 1: boon for them. I mean that it was you know,

702
00:37:52,640 --> 00:37:58,799
Speaker 1: it's hard to really put into into words how influential

703
00:37:58,880 --> 00:38:02,200
Speaker 1: the iPhone has has been, because even if you don't

704
00:38:02,239 --> 00:38:05,160
Speaker 1: own an iPhone, if you want a smartphone, the iPhone

705
00:38:05,160 --> 00:38:08,560
Speaker 1: has influenced that design obviously. I mean a lot of

706
00:38:08,560 --> 00:38:10,880
Speaker 1: the design elements that you see, while they may not

707
00:38:11,040 --> 00:38:13,319
Speaker 1: be a you know, you might not say, oh, they

708
00:38:13,320 --> 00:38:15,960
Speaker 1: copied Apple. Maybe they went very much other way to

709
00:38:16,080 --> 00:38:20,320
Speaker 1: not copy Apple, but that means that the Apple influenced them.

710
00:38:20,440 --> 00:38:23,560
Speaker 1: So it's pretty amazing stuff. And of course, I mean,

711
00:38:23,640 --> 00:38:27,760
Speaker 1: I remember the craze that went out when the iPhone

712
00:38:27,760 --> 00:38:29,920
Speaker 1: came out. Me I was like, I'm gonna wait a

713
00:38:29,920 --> 00:38:33,000
Speaker 1: few more months because Android's coming, and uh and so

714
00:38:33,080 --> 00:38:35,200
Speaker 1: I did. I waited it out and got myself an

715
00:38:35,239 --> 00:38:38,520
Speaker 1: Android phone. My wife has an iPhone and we fight.

716
00:38:38,960 --> 00:38:43,359
Speaker 1: That's a different podcast. UM two seven was also the

717
00:38:43,480 --> 00:38:46,600
Speaker 1: year that A T and T announced that that wireless

718
00:38:46,600 --> 00:38:49,120
Speaker 1: services were going to be the main focus at the company,

719
00:38:49,440 --> 00:38:52,200
Speaker 1: And I mean that was kind of obvious following their

720
00:38:52,280 --> 00:38:55,560
Speaker 1: huge investment of the inphone. In hindsight, we can definitely

721
00:38:55,600 --> 00:38:58,480
Speaker 1: say it's obvious. But keep in mind that before the iPhone,

722
00:38:58,920 --> 00:39:01,600
Speaker 1: and while wireless was finally becoming important because everyone was

723
00:39:01,719 --> 00:39:05,160
Speaker 1: adopting cell phones, smartphones had not really taken off in

724
00:39:05,200 --> 00:39:07,400
Speaker 1: the United States and the consumer market at all, and

725
00:39:07,440 --> 00:39:09,399
Speaker 1: no one could have predicted how big they would become

726
00:39:09,440 --> 00:39:12,480
Speaker 1: so shortly, right, so that that was a very wise

727
00:39:12,719 --> 00:39:14,879
Speaker 1: kind of move on their part. You know, some people

728
00:39:14,920 --> 00:39:16,680
Speaker 1: might say it was a little late on their part,

729
00:39:16,719 --> 00:39:19,400
Speaker 1: but I think considering that there was no way of

730
00:39:19,440 --> 00:39:21,319
Speaker 1: knowing at that time what was going to happen, it

731
00:39:21,360 --> 00:39:23,120
Speaker 1: was it was the right move, and and you know

732
00:39:23,160 --> 00:39:26,719
Speaker 1: they would spend seventy billion on acquiring Spectrum and on

733
00:39:26,840 --> 00:39:29,520
Speaker 1: building out wireless networks in the next three years alone,

734
00:39:29,560 --> 00:39:31,799
Speaker 1: So they were pretty serious about it. Yeah, although if

735
00:39:31,800 --> 00:39:33,759
Speaker 1: you lived in New York or San Francisco, you had

736
00:39:33,760 --> 00:39:35,239
Speaker 1: a lot to say about that A T and T

737
00:39:35,400 --> 00:39:39,400
Speaker 1: service in those early days on the iPhone. I don't

738
00:39:39,440 --> 00:39:42,080
Speaker 1: live there, but since we work in technology and a

739
00:39:42,120 --> 00:39:44,520
Speaker 1: lot of our peers work in San Francisco and New York,

740
00:39:44,760 --> 00:39:48,640
Speaker 1: we were bombarded with complaints heard heard a bunch about

741
00:39:48,680 --> 00:39:50,520
Speaker 1: that one. UM. Also in two thousand and seven, as

742
00:39:50,560 --> 00:39:53,279
Speaker 1: a side note, at At At Whittaker announced his retirement from

743
00:39:53,280 --> 00:39:55,239
Speaker 1: A T and T. He would go on to UM

744
00:39:55,400 --> 00:39:59,080
Speaker 1: basically turn General General Motor Company around from its bankruptcy

745
00:39:59,239 --> 00:40:02,200
Speaker 1: in two thousand and I always find it very admirable

746
00:40:02,280 --> 00:40:06,160
Speaker 1: to see people who are just incredible leaders move on

747
00:40:06,280 --> 00:40:10,400
Speaker 1: from one position to another, not even necessarily for for profit,

748
00:40:10,480 --> 00:40:14,200
Speaker 1: but because they like the challenge of taking a company

749
00:40:14,239 --> 00:40:17,360
Speaker 1: that's struggling perhaps or maybe just not performing up to

750
00:40:17,440 --> 00:40:20,200
Speaker 1: expectations and really turning it around. I always find those

751
00:40:20,239 --> 00:40:22,279
Speaker 1: stories interesting, especially I kind of I kind of want

752
00:40:22,280 --> 00:40:24,399
Speaker 1: to look more into into this into this dude because

753
00:40:24,440 --> 00:40:26,880
Speaker 1: he was, um, you know, he started as an industrial

754
00:40:26,960 --> 00:40:30,640
Speaker 1: engineer and and worked in engineering before he moved all

755
00:40:30,680 --> 00:40:32,920
Speaker 1: the way up through the company to become its at CEO.

756
00:40:33,160 --> 00:40:35,759
Speaker 1: That's also a phenomenal story because what weo could and

757
00:40:35,800 --> 00:40:37,520
Speaker 1: we hear all those stories about people who just come

758
00:40:37,520 --> 00:40:40,439
Speaker 1: out of business schools and go into leadership roles without

759
00:40:40,520 --> 00:40:44,760
Speaker 1: having actually worked in the rank and file of various companies.

760
00:40:44,760 --> 00:40:47,320
Speaker 1: It's always fun to have. Maybe we'll put that atlticer

761
00:40:47,400 --> 00:40:51,479
Speaker 1: down as a potential person to cover in a future episode. Um,

762
00:40:51,520 --> 00:40:54,640
Speaker 1: all right, well let's take another quick break to thank

763
00:40:54,680 --> 00:40:58,319
Speaker 1: our sponsor. Alright, So two thousand and seven, we've got

764
00:40:58,360 --> 00:41:00,359
Speaker 1: that a T and T with the iPhone owned. They

765
00:41:00,360 --> 00:41:03,719
Speaker 1: have the exclusivity deal, which would not last uh five years,

766
00:41:03,719 --> 00:41:07,200
Speaker 1: Like you wouldn't be two thousand twelve before the iPhone

767
00:41:07,200 --> 00:41:09,040
Speaker 1: was available on other carriers in the United States. It

768
00:41:09,040 --> 00:41:11,440
Speaker 1: would actually be two thousand eleven. Do you have anything

769
00:41:11,440 --> 00:41:17,480
Speaker 1: between twenty Alright, So nothing happened in two thousands eight

770
00:41:17,560 --> 00:41:20,719
Speaker 1: nine or two universe ceased to exist briefly. We all

771
00:41:20,719 --> 00:41:22,319
Speaker 1: just took a break, you know, we were all you know,

772
00:41:22,520 --> 00:41:25,920
Speaker 1: they're watching television or something. Two thousand eleven rolls around,

773
00:41:26,000 --> 00:41:28,160
Speaker 1: and a T and T s exclusive hold in the

774
00:41:28,160 --> 00:41:31,319
Speaker 1: iPhone in the United States ends. Uh. And also a

775
00:41:31,400 --> 00:41:34,400
Speaker 1: T and T makes a move to acquire a rival

776
00:41:34,680 --> 00:41:38,239
Speaker 1: cellular company, T Mobile. Yeah, and that one, in fact,

777
00:41:38,320 --> 00:41:41,520
Speaker 1: would get the strong attention of f CC, Yeah, and

778
00:41:41,560 --> 00:41:44,040
Speaker 1: the Department of Justice, as it turns out. And so

779
00:41:44,040 --> 00:41:47,640
Speaker 1: so I remember hearing about that, and immediately my response

780
00:41:47,760 --> 00:41:51,799
Speaker 1: was please, no, no, no, no, never. Why Because a

781
00:41:51,880 --> 00:41:54,160
Speaker 1: T and T and T Mobile, while you know, A

782
00:41:54,200 --> 00:41:57,880
Speaker 1: T T the second largest cellular service company in the

783
00:41:57,920 --> 00:42:01,200
Speaker 1: United States, the first being Verizon, third is Sprint, and

784
00:42:01,239 --> 00:42:04,040
Speaker 1: the fourth is T Mobile. Now, A T and T

785
00:42:04,200 --> 00:42:08,600
Speaker 1: and T Mobile both work on the same general technology

786
00:42:08,640 --> 00:42:11,600
Speaker 1: for cellular service, whereas Verizon and Sprint work on the

787
00:42:11,640 --> 00:42:13,800
Speaker 1: other one. So the one that A T and T

788
00:42:13,880 --> 00:42:15,600
Speaker 1: and T Mobile uses as the one that most of

789
00:42:15,600 --> 00:42:18,239
Speaker 1: the world uses. And I thought, well, that means that

790
00:42:18,320 --> 00:42:20,760
Speaker 1: while it looks like your choice is only going down

791
00:42:21,320 --> 00:42:23,520
Speaker 1: from from one and four to one and three for

792
00:42:23,600 --> 00:42:26,040
Speaker 1: the major carriers, keep in mind they're smaller carriers in

793
00:42:26,080 --> 00:42:29,319
Speaker 1: the West, and the major carriers, your choices go down

794
00:42:29,320 --> 00:42:31,600
Speaker 1: from one and four to one and three and effect,

795
00:42:31,600 --> 00:42:34,640
Speaker 1: it really meant that if you wanted that particular type

796
00:42:34,640 --> 00:42:37,520
Speaker 1: of technology where you could theoretically be able to use

797
00:42:37,520 --> 00:42:39,480
Speaker 1: your phone in other parts of the world depending on

798
00:42:39,520 --> 00:42:42,680
Speaker 1: how your plan worked that out. Um, you only had

799
00:42:42,719 --> 00:42:45,120
Speaker 1: one choice if A T and T were to acquire

800
00:42:45,120 --> 00:42:46,960
Speaker 1: T Mobile, at least one major choice that had a

801
00:42:46,960 --> 00:42:49,560
Speaker 1: lot of support in the United States. So I was

802
00:42:49,719 --> 00:42:52,359
Speaker 1: very much against it. I was not the only one.

803
00:42:53,000 --> 00:42:56,719
Speaker 1: There were lots of people that were just leading the

804
00:42:56,800 --> 00:43:00,360
Speaker 1: charge against this potential merger. A T. T and T

805
00:43:00,480 --> 00:43:03,160
Speaker 1: Mobile would meet with the United States government multiple times

806
00:43:03,160 --> 00:43:05,239
Speaker 1: to kind of give testimony as to why they thought

807
00:43:05,360 --> 00:43:07,480
Speaker 1: this was a great idea. A T and T claimed

808
00:43:07,480 --> 00:43:11,360
Speaker 1: that this would create thousands of new jobs, whereas the company,

809
00:43:11,400 --> 00:43:15,319
Speaker 1: the organizations and parts of the government that were opposed

810
00:43:15,400 --> 00:43:17,839
Speaker 1: to this said exactly the opposite, that it was going

811
00:43:17,920 --> 00:43:22,400
Speaker 1: to end up eliminating jobs. UM, particularly in in various

812
00:43:22,640 --> 00:43:26,280
Speaker 1: regions of the United States where they had major operating

813
00:43:26,280 --> 00:43:28,560
Speaker 1: centers that they were afraid would shut down as a

814
00:43:28,560 --> 00:43:31,960
Speaker 1: result of this this merger. So yeah, it was a

815
00:43:32,000 --> 00:43:37,160
Speaker 1: big deal, um approximately thirty nine billion dollar deal. UH

816
00:43:37,280 --> 00:43:41,840
Speaker 1: Sprint launched a project called No Takeover, so Sprint sprints

817
00:43:41,840 --> 00:43:45,160
Speaker 1: like you know, guys, I know we're not directly involved

818
00:43:45,160 --> 00:43:47,880
Speaker 1: in this merger, but we would be directly affected by it.

819
00:43:48,000 --> 00:43:52,160
Speaker 1: So that's why they launched a campaign to raise awareness

820
00:43:52,200 --> 00:43:55,439
Speaker 1: and to to get some more traction against the move,

821
00:43:56,040 --> 00:43:58,440
Speaker 1: and the U s Department of Justice and the FCC

822
00:43:58,600 --> 00:44:02,200
Speaker 1: opposed the deal. E T and T would eventually withdraw

823
00:44:02,360 --> 00:44:05,080
Speaker 1: the deal right around the end of twent beginning of

824
00:44:06,080 --> 00:44:08,319
Speaker 1: and the Department of Justice actually said, we feel the

825
00:44:08,360 --> 00:44:10,520
Speaker 1: combination of A T and T and T Mobile would

826
00:44:10,520 --> 00:44:13,720
Speaker 1: result in tens of millions of consumers facing higher prices,

827
00:44:13,840 --> 00:44:17,439
Speaker 1: your choices and low quality products for wireless services, which

828
00:44:17,560 --> 00:44:20,080
Speaker 1: uh I think in the tech bis we call a

829
00:44:20,160 --> 00:44:25,520
Speaker 1: sick burn. Uh yeah, So the merger does not go through,

830
00:44:25,760 --> 00:44:27,919
Speaker 1: it it falls through. Now this was a big deal

831
00:44:27,960 --> 00:44:31,600
Speaker 1: because we also were talking about T Mobile's parent company

832
00:44:32,239 --> 00:44:36,640
Speaker 1: in dire financial straits and so, but T Mobile was

833
00:44:36,840 --> 00:44:40,279
Speaker 1: operating independently pretty much already at that point. Anyway, it

834
00:44:40,360 --> 00:44:42,359
Speaker 1: was just a question of who was going to buy

835
00:44:42,400 --> 00:44:44,120
Speaker 1: it up or was it going to just continue to

836
00:44:44,160 --> 00:44:47,480
Speaker 1: be um, you know, sort of a self sustaining entity.

837
00:44:47,640 --> 00:44:50,359
Speaker 1: In two thousand and twelve, uh A T T gets

838
00:44:50,360 --> 00:44:54,080
Speaker 1: sued again by the United States Department of Justice. The

839
00:44:54,120 --> 00:44:58,360
Speaker 1: Department of Justice alleged that the carrier intentionally neglected to

840
00:44:58,480 --> 00:45:02,640
Speaker 1: authenticate users of the IP relay service. That's a tool

841
00:45:02,680 --> 00:45:05,040
Speaker 1: that was used by or it is used by people

842
00:45:05,080 --> 00:45:07,960
Speaker 1: who have hearing impairment. Uh. The way it works is

843
00:45:08,000 --> 00:45:12,480
Speaker 1: they can type in messages and a communications assistant reads

844
00:45:12,520 --> 00:45:16,359
Speaker 1: the message out loud to a caller. So it's kind

845
00:45:16,400 --> 00:45:18,720
Speaker 1: of a you know, it's a service so that someone

846
00:45:18,800 --> 00:45:21,560
Speaker 1: who might be deaf or unable to communicate in a

847
00:45:21,600 --> 00:45:25,200
Speaker 1: way that that most people could understand could contact a

848
00:45:25,440 --> 00:45:30,040
Speaker 1: middle person who would relay the information. Well, the problem

849
00:45:30,280 --> 00:45:33,640
Speaker 1: with this approach was that scammers were starting to use

850
00:45:33,680 --> 00:45:38,320
Speaker 1: it as a means of getting around um laws that

851
00:45:38,320 --> 00:45:40,080
Speaker 1: that would prevent them, like they would end up like

852
00:45:40,160 --> 00:45:43,000
Speaker 1: let's say you've heard, of course, of the Nigerian scam.

853
00:45:43,160 --> 00:45:47,120
Speaker 1: The idea of this person who is has shares your

854
00:45:47,200 --> 00:45:49,960
Speaker 1: last name but does not have a direct relation to you,

855
00:45:50,320 --> 00:45:52,520
Speaker 1: has died and there's all this money that I want

856
00:45:52,520 --> 00:45:54,560
Speaker 1: to get out of the country and just for a

857
00:45:54,640 --> 00:45:57,359
Speaker 1: small cut of the money, I will let you have

858
00:45:57,440 --> 00:45:59,600
Speaker 1: the lion's share of it. I just need you know,

859
00:45:59,680 --> 00:46:02,919
Speaker 1: ten dollars to transfer it. But but but put forth

860
00:46:02,960 --> 00:46:04,920
Speaker 1: a little bit first, Yeah, so that I can, I

861
00:46:04,960 --> 00:46:07,719
Speaker 1: can do the thing. It's all scam right. So it

862
00:46:07,760 --> 00:46:11,160
Speaker 1: turns out scammers were using the the IP relay service

863
00:46:11,480 --> 00:46:14,120
Speaker 1: to try and target people, and so the f C,

864
00:46:14,280 --> 00:46:17,479
Speaker 1: c UH and the d o J both had kind

865
00:46:17,480 --> 00:46:21,520
Speaker 1: of what A T. T said, we're conflicting um directives

866
00:46:21,760 --> 00:46:25,040
Speaker 1: because the FCC said, if you're a carrier, you have

867
00:46:25,160 --> 00:46:28,799
Speaker 1: to support this service because otherwise you are not servicing

868
00:46:28,840 --> 00:46:32,200
Speaker 1: the hearing impaired community. The Department of Justice said, you

869
00:46:32,280 --> 00:46:34,960
Speaker 1: have to verify the identity of the people who want

870
00:46:35,000 --> 00:46:38,560
Speaker 1: to use this service so that you aren't allowing scam

871
00:46:38,640 --> 00:46:42,560
Speaker 1: artists to target victims. And A T and T said,

872
00:46:42,680 --> 00:46:45,360
Speaker 1: what are we supposed to do? We're stuck in between

873
00:46:45,400 --> 00:46:47,480
Speaker 1: these two directives where we have to give this, but

874
00:46:47,520 --> 00:46:50,080
Speaker 1: we also have to do that. And Department of Justice

875
00:46:50,120 --> 00:46:52,839
Speaker 1: was sent saying essentially, we don't buy it. You just

876
00:46:52,880 --> 00:46:55,719
Speaker 1: have to figure out way to verify this. Yeah, you

877
00:46:55,760 --> 00:46:59,480
Speaker 1: gotta you gotta have a verification system um and from

878
00:46:59,480 --> 00:47:01,640
Speaker 1: one I have and seen any resolution to that. So

879
00:47:01,719 --> 00:47:04,160
Speaker 1: I don't know that that particular case may still be

880
00:47:04,200 --> 00:47:06,759
Speaker 1: ongoing as of the recording of this podcast. If it

881
00:47:06,800 --> 00:47:09,640
Speaker 1: has resolved, I could not find any information. That's one

882
00:47:09,680 --> 00:47:15,120
Speaker 1: of the problems of following up on on reporting about these. Yeah,

883
00:47:15,360 --> 00:47:18,880
Speaker 1: you'll you'll hear about it when the lawsuit is leveled,

884
00:47:19,239 --> 00:47:22,240
Speaker 1: but then there's not a lot of follow up. Resolutions

885
00:47:22,239 --> 00:47:26,480
Speaker 1: to lawsuits are occasionally considered less news worthy. That's unfortunate.

886
00:47:27,200 --> 00:47:29,080
Speaker 1: That same year, in two thousand twelve, A T and

887
00:47:29,120 --> 00:47:34,000
Speaker 1: T made a A hundred twenty six point four billion

888
00:47:34,160 --> 00:47:37,600
Speaker 1: dollars in revenues. That's according to their two thousand twelve

889
00:47:37,719 --> 00:47:40,480
Speaker 1: financial report, which I looked up just before we came

890
00:47:40,520 --> 00:47:43,360
Speaker 1: in here. Uh that was a two point four percent

891
00:47:43,440 --> 00:47:46,720
Speaker 1: growth over two thousand eleven revenues. And in that same report,

892
00:47:47,320 --> 00:47:50,120
Speaker 1: A T and T VP of Consumer Product Planning and

893
00:47:50,200 --> 00:47:53,600
Speaker 1: Research said that A T. T was looking at mobile payments,

894
00:47:53,640 --> 00:47:56,960
Speaker 1: as in using your smartphone as your payment way, Like

895
00:47:57,000 --> 00:47:58,880
Speaker 1: if you go to a restaurant, you tap your smartphone

896
00:47:58,920 --> 00:48:01,640
Speaker 1: against that, you know, the whole NFC wallet kind of stuff.

897
00:48:02,480 --> 00:48:04,680
Speaker 1: I think that's great. I really look forward to the

898
00:48:05,000 --> 00:48:07,080
Speaker 1: to being able to use my smartphone to pay for

899
00:48:07,120 --> 00:48:09,680
Speaker 1: stuff as long as it's secure. But the biggest issue

900
00:48:09,719 --> 00:48:12,840
Speaker 1: I have is, I mean beyond security, which clearly that

901
00:48:12,880 --> 00:48:16,480
Speaker 1: needs to be number one But number two is my

902
00:48:16,560 --> 00:48:19,080
Speaker 1: concern that there are all these different systems that are

903
00:48:19,080 --> 00:48:21,680
Speaker 1: being proposed that different companies are behind, Like Google has

904
00:48:21,719 --> 00:48:24,120
Speaker 1: Google Wallet, A T T has this other one, and

905
00:48:24,120 --> 00:48:26,040
Speaker 1: then you've got these other companies that are looking at

906
00:48:26,040 --> 00:48:30,200
Speaker 1: it too. If all of them are using proprietary language

907
00:48:30,280 --> 00:48:33,520
Speaker 1: for their systems, that means that the merchants have to

908
00:48:33,600 --> 00:48:36,640
Speaker 1: choose which system are they going to support, because you know,

909
00:48:36,920 --> 00:48:38,600
Speaker 1: I doubt that most of them are going to have

910
00:48:38,680 --> 00:48:42,000
Speaker 1: some sort of multiple support. That would be expensive for

911
00:48:42,080 --> 00:48:44,759
Speaker 1: them to be part of all these different programs. So

912
00:48:44,920 --> 00:48:47,320
Speaker 1: a merchant has to make it kind of a decision

913
00:48:47,360 --> 00:48:49,320
Speaker 1: like which one is likely to be the most popular,

914
00:48:49,400 --> 00:48:51,160
Speaker 1: That's the one I'm going to support, Which means that

915
00:48:51,200 --> 00:48:54,759
Speaker 1: as a consumer, your choices are limited. You may have

916
00:48:55,000 --> 00:48:57,400
Speaker 1: no choice at all. You may have to use a

917
00:48:57,440 --> 00:48:59,960
Speaker 1: specific type of phone if you want to take advant

918
00:49:00,040 --> 00:49:03,600
Speaker 1: to that kind of service. I don't like that. I

919
00:49:03,680 --> 00:49:07,200
Speaker 1: like it when everybody is using using the same basic

920
00:49:07,400 --> 00:49:10,439
Speaker 1: set of language, so that the merchant can have a

921
00:49:10,520 --> 00:49:14,600
Speaker 1: single device and no matter what phone you use, you

922
00:49:14,640 --> 00:49:17,280
Speaker 1: can use it as long as it's compatible with that device.

923
00:49:17,719 --> 00:49:21,279
Speaker 1: I think that most um app creators these days realize

924
00:49:21,400 --> 00:49:25,319
Speaker 1: the efficiency that the profit in making things available to

925
00:49:25,440 --> 00:49:30,759
Speaker 1: multiple platforms, so or I guess multiple um devices right right. Yeah,

926
00:49:30,800 --> 00:49:33,800
Speaker 1: it's just it's tough when the the service provider is

927
00:49:33,840 --> 00:49:36,960
Speaker 1: also the one who creates the hardware, as is the case. Well,

928
00:49:37,000 --> 00:49:38,960
Speaker 1: A T and T does not directly create the hardware,

929
00:49:39,239 --> 00:49:42,759
Speaker 1: but they create a layer of firmware and software that

930
00:49:42,760 --> 00:49:47,160
Speaker 1: that hardware carries. So it definitely, again it's something to

931
00:49:47,160 --> 00:49:50,759
Speaker 1: watch a few years, the Department Justice will step in

932
00:49:50,840 --> 00:49:53,759
Speaker 1: and say, hey, I know that we keep talking to

933
00:49:53,800 --> 00:49:57,040
Speaker 1: you guys, and I'm really sorry. I didn't bring this

934
00:49:57,120 --> 00:49:59,400
Speaker 1: up last time, but we didn't know that it existed.

935
00:49:59,440 --> 00:50:03,440
Speaker 1: Then yeah, we'll see if that happens. But there's also

936
00:50:03,600 --> 00:50:05,840
Speaker 1: some other interesting stuff mentioned in that report that A

937
00:50:05,920 --> 00:50:07,680
Speaker 1: T and T is working on stuff that I find

938
00:50:07,760 --> 00:50:11,160
Speaker 1: really exciting. Again, the whole proprietary network stuff is that

939
00:50:11,360 --> 00:50:15,400
Speaker 1: it could be an issue, but it's still exciting technologies

940
00:50:15,400 --> 00:50:18,560
Speaker 1: like vehicle to vehicle communications. A T and T labs

941
00:50:18,560 --> 00:50:22,319
Speaker 1: are looking into that vehicle to road communications. We've talked

942
00:50:22,320 --> 00:50:25,280
Speaker 1: about that on tech stuff. We've talked about on forward thinking.

943
00:50:25,360 --> 00:50:28,920
Speaker 1: We you know the idea of having these communicating vehicles

944
00:50:28,920 --> 00:50:31,680
Speaker 1: and communicating infrastructure Yeah. A t T is actually working

945
00:50:31,680 --> 00:50:35,240
Speaker 1: with several auto manufacturers, from A Tesla to BMW, Nissan

946
00:50:35,280 --> 00:50:39,799
Speaker 1: and Ford um to to provide the Internet Internet connectivity

947
00:50:39,840 --> 00:50:42,920
Speaker 1: to new automate automobiles. Yeah, which is fantastic. I mean

948
00:50:42,920 --> 00:50:44,799
Speaker 1: when you think about it, that means that cars can

949
00:50:44,840 --> 00:50:48,400
Speaker 1: communicate with one another, traffic can smooth out over time,

950
00:50:48,480 --> 00:50:52,080
Speaker 1: you can have that sort of collision detection technology built

951
00:50:52,080 --> 00:50:55,520
Speaker 1: in there. In other words, you can make driving safer,

952
00:50:56,160 --> 00:50:58,799
Speaker 1: uh slightly more automated, not to the point where the

953
00:50:58,840 --> 00:51:01,200
Speaker 1: car is taking over or you, but the car at

954
00:51:01,280 --> 00:51:03,280
Speaker 1: least is able to alert you to things that otherwise

955
00:51:03,280 --> 00:51:07,960
Speaker 1: you would not know or even help the the infrastructure,

956
00:51:08,000 --> 00:51:11,360
Speaker 1: the traffic infrastructure respond to dynamic changes so or to

957
00:51:11,560 --> 00:51:13,440
Speaker 1: you know, just get just get the music that you

958
00:51:13,480 --> 00:51:16,200
Speaker 1: want to listen to from Pandora, Spotify or something like

959
00:51:16,239 --> 00:51:18,960
Speaker 1: that to play in your car. What I want I

960
00:51:19,040 --> 00:51:22,719
Speaker 1: want them to develop a technology where when my car

961
00:51:22,800 --> 00:51:25,440
Speaker 1: pulls up next to another car and I can see

962
00:51:25,480 --> 00:51:28,400
Speaker 1: that the driver in that other car is really rocking

963
00:51:28,400 --> 00:51:30,879
Speaker 1: out to something but I can't hear it, I can

964
00:51:30,920 --> 00:51:33,360
Speaker 1: find out what music they're listening to and then listen

965
00:51:33,400 --> 00:51:35,160
Speaker 1: to that myself, just to find out, you know, is

966
00:51:35,200 --> 00:51:39,279
Speaker 1: that really worth it? Is? They they would just they

967
00:51:39,280 --> 00:51:41,040
Speaker 1: would just get J pop for me all the time,

968
00:51:41,320 --> 00:51:46,240
Speaker 1: as you have revealed to everybody on Forward Taking. Speaking

969
00:51:46,239 --> 00:51:49,840
Speaker 1: of Forward Thinking, if you are interested in automated automobiles,

970
00:51:50,440 --> 00:51:52,920
Speaker 1: we just did another episode on that, so that should

971
00:51:52,920 --> 00:51:55,359
Speaker 1: be coming out soon. Yeah, so definitely go check out

972
00:51:55,360 --> 00:51:58,040
Speaker 1: that podcast. We have a lot of fun on that show.

973
00:51:58,080 --> 00:52:00,560
Speaker 1: So if you enjoy tech stuff, I'm sure you would

974
00:52:00,560 --> 00:52:02,680
Speaker 1: love Forward Thinking. Yeah. Um, so does that bring us up?

975
00:52:03,600 --> 00:52:06,320
Speaker 1: It does? Yes. That's when A T and T announced

976
00:52:06,320 --> 00:52:10,640
Speaker 1: it would acquire Leap Wireless for one point two billion dollars.

977
00:52:11,640 --> 00:52:13,680
Speaker 1: It's also when you Verse, which is a T and

978
00:52:13,719 --> 00:52:16,840
Speaker 1: T s broadband television and internet service, had its first

979
00:52:16,960 --> 00:52:21,200
Speaker 1: billion dollar revenue month, a billion dollars in one month,

980
00:52:21,600 --> 00:52:24,520
Speaker 1: I think. I think in two thousand twelve. They made

981
00:52:24,680 --> 00:52:27,680
Speaker 1: ten billion dollars over the course of the year, so

982
00:52:27,800 --> 00:52:31,040
Speaker 1: one billion dollar month that that was. That's huge growth.

983
00:52:31,440 --> 00:52:35,920
Speaker 1: That's that's pretty enormous. You know. Um, that's exciting for

984
00:52:35,960 --> 00:52:38,319
Speaker 1: A T and T. Yeah. A T and T is

985
00:52:38,480 --> 00:52:41,680
Speaker 1: currently because we are recording this podcast in October, they

986
00:52:41,680 --> 00:52:45,960
Speaker 1: are currently the second largest wireless provider after Verizon. UM

987
00:52:46,000 --> 00:52:48,080
Speaker 1: According to Forbes, one of A T and t s

988
00:52:48,080 --> 00:52:51,600
Speaker 1: growing businesses is in providing data plans for tablet owners,

989
00:52:52,800 --> 00:52:55,120
Speaker 1: which is, you know, that's they're just seeing that more

990
00:52:55,120 --> 00:52:58,200
Speaker 1: and more tablet owners are subscribing to these these data

991
00:52:58,239 --> 00:53:01,120
Speaker 1: plans through A T and T, which is both good

992
00:53:01,160 --> 00:53:03,759
Speaker 1: news and bad news. It's good news because it's a

993
00:53:03,880 --> 00:53:07,680
Speaker 1: growing industry, it's a growing business, and it's growing market.

994
00:53:08,080 --> 00:53:10,640
Speaker 1: The bad news is it's not as profitable as some

995
00:53:10,719 --> 00:53:13,239
Speaker 1: of their other businesses. So while it's growing, it's not

996
00:53:13,360 --> 00:53:16,360
Speaker 1: creating the same revenue generation as some of their other businesses.

997
00:53:16,320 --> 00:53:18,480
Speaker 1: And that's also partially due to the fact that smaller

998
00:53:18,480 --> 00:53:21,960
Speaker 1: wireless companies like T Mobile and Sprint are providing really

999
00:53:22,000 --> 00:53:26,480
Speaker 1: steep competition through the price competitions that remind me competition

1000
00:53:26,520 --> 00:53:30,719
Speaker 1: through competitions. Yes, that was very competitive pricing. Um, I

1001
00:53:30,760 --> 00:53:32,760
Speaker 1: mean it's it's the kind of price wars that remind

1002
00:53:32,840 --> 00:53:36,759
Speaker 1: me of that long distance exactly. Like like A T

1003
00:53:36,880 --> 00:53:41,880
Speaker 1: and T had a quick uh head start with iPhone

1004
00:53:41,880 --> 00:53:46,440
Speaker 1: and iPad stuff uh and then uh now the other companies,

1005
00:53:46,480 --> 00:53:48,600
Speaker 1: in order to make up for that that head start,

1006
00:53:48,880 --> 00:53:52,680
Speaker 1: have offered really competitive pricing, which means A T and

1007
00:53:52,760 --> 00:53:56,960
Speaker 1: T either has to follow suit or find some other

1008
00:53:57,000 --> 00:54:01,960
Speaker 1: way of making their service so attractive that the the

1009
00:54:02,040 --> 00:54:06,760
Speaker 1: higher prices feels worthwhile to the consumer. Right. Um. Also,

1010
00:54:06,920 --> 00:54:10,000
Speaker 1: just this month, the FCC adopted an agreement between A

1011
00:54:10,080 --> 00:54:12,480
Speaker 1: T and T, Dish Network Corporation, and a bunch of

1012
00:54:12,520 --> 00:54:16,879
Speaker 1: other smaller wireless companies to help regulate more wireless bandwidths.

1013
00:54:16,960 --> 00:54:18,759
Speaker 1: And that's because A T and T currently owns a

1014
00:54:18,800 --> 00:54:22,040
Speaker 1: band of frequencies in in a one of those powerful

1015
00:54:22,080 --> 00:54:25,360
Speaker 1: signal like seven herds kind of kind of bands, and

1016
00:54:26,280 --> 00:54:28,880
Speaker 1: their their concession to this plan will let smaller local

1017
00:54:28,920 --> 00:54:31,919
Speaker 1: providers get better access to the to the band, which

1018
00:54:31,920 --> 00:54:35,160
Speaker 1: should encourage manufacturers to make and sell more phones for

1019
00:54:35,200 --> 00:54:38,919
Speaker 1: that range and also give customers more options and which

1020
00:54:38,920 --> 00:54:42,479
Speaker 1: wireless provider to adopt. So a T and T owns

1021
00:54:42,480 --> 00:54:46,160
Speaker 1: a band that's adjacent to this other one, and it's

1022
00:54:46,160 --> 00:54:49,719
Speaker 1: sort of an interoperability kind of approach absolutely, and and

1023
00:54:49,719 --> 00:54:52,200
Speaker 1: and Dish Network is related to that because they are

1024
00:54:52,239 --> 00:54:55,680
Speaker 1: also trying to um decrease the strength of the signal

1025
00:54:55,719 --> 00:54:58,280
Speaker 1: that they are using in order to allow other carriers

1026
00:54:58,360 --> 00:55:01,319
Speaker 1: to horn in on it here and there. So I

1027
00:55:01,320 --> 00:55:03,040
Speaker 1: mean this could be a deal that could work out

1028
00:55:03,120 --> 00:55:06,839
Speaker 1: really well for everyone, and I'm looking forward to seeing

1029
00:55:06,840 --> 00:55:09,240
Speaker 1: where it goes. Yeah, yeah, So, I mean, the company

1030
00:55:09,280 --> 00:55:11,640
Speaker 1: has been around for more than a century. It has

1031
00:55:11,680 --> 00:55:16,480
Speaker 1: had uh an incredible story. We've only just touched on it.

1032
00:55:16,520 --> 00:55:19,759
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously we gave kind of a high level

1033
00:55:19,800 --> 00:55:22,120
Speaker 1: glance year by year, but there are a lot of

1034
00:55:22,160 --> 00:55:24,680
Speaker 1: different individual stories in here that we could touch on,

1035
00:55:24,760 --> 00:55:27,480
Speaker 1: including things like, you know, telling more about Shockley and

1036
00:55:27,600 --> 00:55:33,080
Speaker 1: his contributions and the controversy around them, or Whittaker and

1037
00:55:33,280 --> 00:55:36,560
Speaker 1: his story. So you know, we'll probably do more episodes

1038
00:55:36,600 --> 00:55:39,000
Speaker 1: that are related to this after we you know, cover

1039
00:55:39,080 --> 00:55:41,880
Speaker 1: other topics obviously. Sure, if anything really piqued your interest,

1040
00:55:41,960 --> 00:55:44,080
Speaker 1: let us know about that. Yeah, definitely let us know

1041
00:55:44,200 --> 00:55:46,719
Speaker 1: if anything in here, you know, you say I want

1042
00:55:46,760 --> 00:55:48,960
Speaker 1: to know more about that. Maybe you've always wanted to

1043
00:55:49,000 --> 00:55:52,800
Speaker 1: know a much more technical explanation of how cellular phones

1044
00:55:52,840 --> 00:55:55,520
Speaker 1: work in those cellular towers and the headshakes, and maybe

1045
00:55:55,520 --> 00:55:59,719
Speaker 1: you wanna inspire both Lauren and myself with fear that

1046
00:55:59,800 --> 00:56:02,319
Speaker 1: we have to cover it in an intelligent way. If

1047
00:56:02,360 --> 00:56:04,960
Speaker 1: that's the case, or you just have some other topic

1048
00:56:05,080 --> 00:56:07,000
Speaker 1: you think we should cover, let us no send us

1049
00:56:07,040 --> 00:56:10,399
Speaker 1: an email or addresses tech stuff at Discovery dot com

1050
00:56:10,520 --> 00:56:13,120
Speaker 1: or drop us a line on the social networks that

1051
00:56:13,160 --> 00:56:17,000
Speaker 1: we inhabit that would include Twitter, Facebook, and Tumbler, or

1052
00:56:17,080 --> 00:56:19,640
Speaker 1: handle it all three of those is text stuff hs

1053
00:56:19,840 --> 00:56:22,160
Speaker 1: W and Lauren and I will talk to you again

1054
00:56:22,480 --> 00:56:28,640
Speaker 1: really soon for more on this and thousands of other topics.

1055
00:56:28,760 --> 00:56:36,040
Speaker 1: Does it have staff works dot com