Speaker 1: Get in Touch with technology was tex Stuff from house
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com. Hey then, everyone, and welcome to
Speaker 1: text Stuff. I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Lauren and we
Speaker 1: are going to conclude our mega epic series on A
Speaker 1: T and T, the the company that UH that could
Speaker 1: because it was the only one that could and uh
Speaker 1: which the government had something to say about several times. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So in our last episode we concluded with the two,
Speaker 1: which was the end of the jurisdiction between the Department
Speaker 1: of Justice and A T and T. The ruling was
Speaker 1: that A T. T had to divest itself of the
Speaker 1: regional operating carriers, the bell companies that had so so
Speaker 1: so that was that was when mob Bell split into
Speaker 1: several baby bells. Yeah, they were all I think there
Speaker 1: was something like seven regional major regional operating carriers and
Speaker 1: A T and T. The The deal was that A T.
Speaker 1: T was getting out of the local telephone business and
Speaker 1: concentrating solely on on providing service for a long distance
Speaker 1: as well as getting into the burgeoning computer industry, right,
Speaker 1: which would be very important or will be very important
Speaker 1: for this current episode that we are about to embark ponds.
Speaker 1: This is uh. I titled this in my notes as
Speaker 1: part three getting to the bit that we're in now,
Speaker 1: because I'm great at titles. So that brings us up
Speaker 1: to three. When A T and T opens the first
Speaker 1: commercial cellular telephone system in the telephone system, that was
Speaker 1: an interesting emphosis on that salable in the United States
Speaker 1: in Chicago under Ameritech, which was soon to be divested
Speaker 1: from A T and T according to those rules that
Speaker 1: we talked about laid down in the nineteen two settlement
Speaker 1: of the antitrust lawsuit, but at that time in Merritech
Speaker 1: was still under A T and T. Because again, it
Speaker 1: takes time to actually act upon these these judgments. So
Speaker 1: here we have the first cellular telephone system for commercial use,
Speaker 1: and uh yeah, this cellular approach was uh something that
Speaker 1: really made mobile telephones possible because if you remember from
Speaker 1: our last episode, A T and T had created mobile phones,
Speaker 1: but they would connect to a specific radio antenna and
Speaker 1: you had to be within range to use it, and
Speaker 1: if you moved out of range, that was it. Your
Speaker 1: call would just end. Um. Cellular telephones had a bunch
Speaker 1: of towers that would allow you to move within and
Speaker 1: out of range of various towers. There was kind of
Speaker 1: a handshake and electronic handshake involved where you would continue
Speaker 1: to get service even as you moved out of one
Speaker 1: tower's operating area into another. And all of this technology
Speaker 1: was thanks to advancements that came out of a T
Speaker 1: and T Labs. Basically that it's it's that that handshake
Speaker 1: that Jonathan is is talking about. You know, let's let's
Speaker 1: the cells automatically transfer call from one tower to the
Speaker 1: next as as a caller moves through them. And yep,
Speaker 1: that came out of what was formerly or I guess
Speaker 1: currently at that very moment still Bell Labs, but would
Speaker 1: very soon become a T and T Labs. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: it's um one of those one of those crazy develop
Speaker 1: elements that gives us the ability to use technology the
Speaker 1: way we do today. Just imagine if we had not
Speaker 1: come up with that, if a T and T had
Speaker 1: not come up with it, and let's say that you know,
Speaker 1: it had been delayed several years, we'd be in a
Speaker 1: very different world right now. So it was pretty amazing
Speaker 1: stuff that that same year, a researcher at a T
Speaker 1: and T named Beyond Strew Strip which I'm sure I
Speaker 1: mispronounced this name. Turn they did not look it up.
Speaker 1: I didn't even write his name in my notes because
Speaker 1: I was unwilling to try to pronounce it. He debuted
Speaker 1: C plus plus. Yeah, yeah it was. It was so
Speaker 1: much better than C it got two pluses. But yeah,
Speaker 1: C plus plus is an object oriented programming language that
Speaker 1: came out of the Bell Labs development laboratory. So that's
Speaker 1: a little more redundant. In January one four, it's early, y'all.
Speaker 1: So in January one that's when Bell system ceases to
Speaker 1: be Yes, this is the official end of everything that
Speaker 1: that needed to end according to those agreements from right.
Speaker 1: So now we've gotten the boy where A T and
Speaker 1: T is divested of those other companies and is its
Speaker 1: own entity. UH. It retains long distance operations as well
Speaker 1: as the R and D labs and manufacturing, so all
Speaker 1: of that belongs under the umbrella of A T and T.
Speaker 1: And then all that local services handled by those seven
Speaker 1: divested regional building brakes companies and UH that year, Equal
Speaker 1: Access Carrier Selection begins, which is a ruling by the
Speaker 1: FCC said that all telephone customers should be given a
Speaker 1: choice as to which long distance company they would use
Speaker 1: when dialing long distance numbers, so uh that you know, now,
Speaker 1: the regional operating companies, even though they used to be
Speaker 1: part of A T and T, could not give A
Speaker 1: T and T preferential treatment. They could not say, this
Speaker 1: is the company that you have to use if you're
Speaker 1: going to make long distance. They had to give you
Speaker 1: open access to all competitors. So A T and T
Speaker 1: at that time also begins to lower long distance rates.
Speaker 1: Um and they said that. They said that it was
Speaker 1: improvements in their infrastructure that lowered costs and that allowed
Speaker 1: them to lower the rates. Really, what I think was
Speaker 1: happening was that because as they had I mean A T.
Speaker 1: T went from having nearly a hundred and fifty billion
Speaker 1: in assets before the breakup to thirty four billion after
Speaker 1: after this mob Bell to baby Bell break up, which
Speaker 1: is sevent drop an asset value, which is pretty alarming
Speaker 1: when you're a giant company. Um and so, so competitors
Speaker 1: at the time like Sprint and m c I were
Speaker 1: pricing to undersell A T and T pretty seriously. You
Speaker 1: guys might remember some of the commercials that were coming
Speaker 1: out around that time of just the crazy backbiting price
Speaker 1: war stuff that was going on. And remember, you know,
Speaker 1: m c I was the company that had led the
Speaker 1: charge against A T and T back in the seventies
Speaker 1: that eventually evolved into that antitrust lawsuit. So this is
Speaker 1: you know, A T. T said that it's because of
Speaker 1: improvements in service, but in reality, I think we can
Speaker 1: say that this was so that they could remain competitive
Speaker 1: now that it was more of a level playing ground
Speaker 1: in the long distance space, and if they didn't lower
Speaker 1: their prices then they had a real risk of losing
Speaker 1: their customers. The you know, these these two competitors and
Speaker 1: and others as well, would would take huge gnawing bytes
Speaker 1: out of A T and T over the next several years.
Speaker 1: But um nonethless would see a six increase in long
Speaker 1: distance calling between now and now being over the next
Speaker 1: fifteen years. So, you know, long distance was still a
Speaker 1: very major thing because wireless didn't exist. We hadn't really
Speaker 1: moved on to a post long distance world. I can't
Speaker 1: remember the last time I was charged for a long
Speaker 1: distance call that wasn't say, an international call. It was
Speaker 1: about two thousand one for me. Wow, So did everyone
Speaker 1: just move near you? Or was that when things changed?
Speaker 1: That's when I got a cell phone? Oh got you
Speaker 1: all right, Yeah, that's about when I did too. I'm sure,
Speaker 1: I think maybe a lot earlier. It's hard for me
Speaker 1: to remember years ago by so quickly. Alright, So between
Speaker 1: four and nothing happened. Actually, I just didn't find anything
Speaker 1: that I thought was its uff happened. I just didn't
Speaker 1: fin anything I found particularly noteworthy to add in my notes.
Speaker 1: So let's go to excellent. That's when A T and
Speaker 1: T lays down the tapped eight, the T a T eight,
Speaker 1: which was another transatlantic telephone cable. This one made a
Speaker 1: fiber optics Yeah, so across the Atlantic obviously, and could
Speaker 1: carry ten times the number of calls the earlier copper
Speaker 1: cable could handle. Now remember the originally we were talking about,
Speaker 1: you know, copper cable able to handle thirty or forty
Speaker 1: calls at most. The earliest one is only able to
Speaker 1: handle one at a time. By this time, so you think, oh,
Speaker 1: ten times the number, why is it like so it's
Speaker 1: a hundred calls. No, by this time they had improved
Speaker 1: the technology significantly. We're talking forty thousand simultaneous calls. So
Speaker 1: when all of your buddies want to call all of uh,
Speaker 1: you know, each other across the pond. This is what
Speaker 1: makes it possible without getting a signal saying sorry, all
Speaker 1: lines are busy. Uh. In eight T Labs began working
Speaker 1: on hd t V, specifically on the kind of high
Speaker 1: speed signal processing problems that arise when a computer needs to,
Speaker 1: you know, receive de code and display a large amount
Speaker 1: of data in real time. But this is pretty impressive
Speaker 1: for those of you who are HDTV enthusiasts. Here in
Speaker 1: the United States, HDTV had a fairly late start. It
Speaker 1: got earlier start in Japan. Uh, and it took a
Speaker 1: while for there to be an agreed upon set of
Speaker 1: standards guiding h d t V because obviously you need
Speaker 1: to be able to have all the different players involved
Speaker 1: working on those same set of standards. The delivery of
Speaker 1: the quality of the signal needs to be correct. The
Speaker 1: manufacturers need to be working on a similar approach. So
Speaker 1: this was very early on. Then A T and T
Speaker 1: was looking at this is saying this is going to
Speaker 1: be a thing. It's not a thing now, It's probably
Speaker 1: not gonna be a thing for maybe ten years, but
Speaker 1: we need to work on it now. It would also
Speaker 1: turn out to be pretty forward thinking for them, because
Speaker 1: they would wind up getting pretty seriously into the cable
Speaker 1: industry in just another few years, right forward, thinking hand.
Speaker 1: For some reason, I love that phrase. Bell Labs also
Speaker 1: was working at that time on a speech actuated manipulator
Speaker 1: also known as SAM oh right, Yeah, and that that
Speaker 1: would that would become kind of important in another couple
Speaker 1: of years as well. Yeah, it's kind of neat. This
Speaker 1: was like an early approach to trying to create a
Speaker 1: robot that could respond to natural language commands, so things
Speaker 1: like turn left or lower your arm, that kind of thing. Uh,
Speaker 1: And it was just really the early days sort of
Speaker 1: a proof of concept to create robots that could do.
Speaker 1: This also meant that they were working very hard on
Speaker 1: improving just natural language recognition, which is that's incredibly difficult.
Speaker 1: It's hard to teach a computer that, you know, we
Speaker 1: can say the same command a hundred different ways. For
Speaker 1: the computer to be able to interpret all one hundred
Speaker 1: of those variations as a single command and differentiate it
Speaker 1: from every other command is phenomenal. Yeah, especially in English,
Speaker 1: which is pretty messy in really wonderful ways. When we
Speaker 1: start being an idiom, that's really like wave it around
Speaker 1: like you just don't care that robot is going to
Speaker 1: have some trouble. First of all, it doesn't care. Robots
Speaker 1: don't care. They don't care. They don't that robot program
Speaker 1: to pretend to care. Yeah, that's about as good as
Speaker 1: we can get. I mean it's yeah, I've known some
Speaker 1: people that way too, so I'm not going to speak
Speaker 1: down to robots too much. Um. Now, moving on to nine,
Speaker 1: that's when A T and T acquired in CR Corporation,
Speaker 1: which is a computer manufacturing company. I think with this
Speaker 1: they were really hoping to start hopping that that software
Speaker 1: hardware divide or or I guess it's the networking hardware
Speaker 1: divide more so they again we're looking forward to too, Yeah,
Speaker 1: to really get in that, but I mean that that
Speaker 1: was one of the things that they were allowed to
Speaker 1: do now after that two judgment. Uh, and this was
Speaker 1: kind of a real serious move into that space. Um.
Speaker 1: In two, they unveiled the Voice English Spanish Translator or VEST,
Speaker 1: which was first developed back in but it was first
Speaker 1: unveiled in ninety two, so they're still working on those
Speaker 1: improvements to voice technology. He could recognize about four hundred
Speaker 1: fifty words and around a billion different combinations. And the
Speaker 1: way it would work is that you would speak into
Speaker 1: the microphone. The software would first attempt to identify what
Speaker 1: language you are speaking, either English or Spanish. At that point,
Speaker 1: when it had identified the language, it would then translate
Speaker 1: what you were saying into the other language, so English
Speaker 1: and Spanish or Spanish to English via text. What it
Speaker 1: would do is break down your sentences into little basic
Speaker 1: component parts and then translate those component parts, which anyone
Speaker 1: who has done any translation knows is not a you know,
Speaker 1: full proof way of translating, because sometimes if you break
Speaker 1: a sense down, you can involve multiple parts of a sentence, again,
Speaker 1: especially in English, where your ward order is not perhaps
Speaker 1: as structured as it might be in other languages. I mean,
Speaker 1: I would love to see this in action, just because
Speaker 1: it again is tackling one of those fundamentally difficult problems
Speaker 1: for human computer interaction. In A T and T merged
Speaker 1: with maccaw Cellular Communications Incorporated, which at that time was
Speaker 1: the largest provider of cellular service in the United States.
Speaker 1: So that acquisition eventually means that the the entity that
Speaker 1: was McCaw Cellular Communications becomes A T T Wireless along
Speaker 1: with another company will mention in a bit, But that
Speaker 1: same year, A T and t also introduced the Model
Speaker 1: seventy video phone. Yeah, that was kind of a video
Speaker 1: teleconferencing hardware. And you know that they had had such
Speaker 1: rousing lack of success with their picture phone that that
Speaker 1: but but but they realized that people were more willing
Speaker 1: to do this a and an work environment and be
Speaker 1: on a computer than they were on a phone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so this was allowing simultaneous video transmission, so that it
Speaker 1: kind of predecessor to the video software we used today
Speaker 1: for things like Skype or other Google hangouts, those kind
Speaker 1: of video hangout things. It also would allow some limited
Speaker 1: use of letting, like the person who's calling you manipulate
Speaker 1: files so you can open the files within it and
Speaker 1: have so it's kind of like a video conferencing system
Speaker 1: very early on, So pretty impressive considering. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, that's we're still talking like this is still
Speaker 1: the very early days of the Worldwide Web. Keep in mind,
Speaker 1: you out that that really hadn't even launched till nine two.
Speaker 1: So seeing some video communication stuff in ninety three was exciting.
Speaker 1: You know, I can remember the first time I ever
Speaker 1: saw any kind of video communication. I remember exactly what
Speaker 1: I was doing. What what were you doing. I was
Speaker 1: at the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow or EPCUT as
Speaker 1: it is called now it's no longer known as its
Speaker 1: full name. So they used to have these consoles mounted
Speaker 1: on columns where you could walk up to the consoles. Yeah, hello,
Speaker 1: touchscreen interface, You press a button and then you would
Speaker 1: get greeted by a cast member who would ask what
Speaker 1: what you needed, and you could ask them anything that
Speaker 1: had to do with the parks. Eventually you could do
Speaker 1: things like even uh, dining reservations. That way, you could
Speaker 1: say I would like to eat at Mexico at noon,
Speaker 1: and they would they would make that Mexico being the
Speaker 1: pavilion in the World Showcase. It wouldn't. Actually now we
Speaker 1: still don't have that technology. I'm waiting on it. I wouldn't.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't put it past Disney to just have that
Speaker 1: in the back pocket. But yeah, but it must have
Speaker 1: been right around this same time, all right, right in
Speaker 1: the early nineties, right, speaking of names no longer meaning
Speaker 1: that long drawn out thing that they used to mean
Speaker 1: in that's when A T. T legally changed their name
Speaker 1: from the American Telephone and Telegraph Corporation to just A
Speaker 1: T and T Corp. Or corporation. I mean the corporation
Speaker 1: stays the same, Yeah, but it was just a T
Speaker 1: and T. So now it's as telegraphs were no longer
Speaker 1: a thing. Kind of like when you look at certain
Speaker 1: names that used to mean one thing. Now it's just
Speaker 1: the initials. So you might ask, like, what does AMC mean?
Speaker 1: And it used to me in American movie classics. Now
Speaker 1: it's just a m C. That's just the name. So,
Speaker 1: same sort of thing. So moving up to n IF,
Speaker 1: that's when a T and T restructures into three separate companies.
Speaker 1: So one of them is a T and T. That's
Speaker 1: the services company. It's the one that we all know
Speaker 1: and are familiar with. The second one becomes Lucent Technologies.
Speaker 1: Now that is a products and systems company. Uh, it's
Speaker 1: really kind of a manufacturing company for certain types of electronics.
Speaker 1: And the third is a computer company that returns to
Speaker 1: the NCR name. You know, they purchased NCR just a
Speaker 1: few years earlier, and Loosen and n c R eventually
Speaker 1: both spin off as their own companies. Uh. The following year,
Speaker 1: in fact, we got a little bit more we want
Speaker 1: to say about the following year. But before we do that,
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Speaker 1: I recommend checking out, at least the first season anyway,
Speaker 1: is Heroes. It was one of those takes on television
Speaker 1: of creating a superhero show, uh if superheroes were somehow
Speaker 1: grounded in our real world. And that first season has
Speaker 1: a lot going for it that I really enjoyed, and uh,
Speaker 1: that's thing that I will watch, you know, I'll just
Speaker 1: do a marathon session, sit down and just watch episode
Speaker 1: after episode, and it really becomes a challenge to figure
Speaker 1: out when I'm going to turn it off, which is
Speaker 1: a great problem to have. Go check it out. Alright,
Speaker 1: So it's back to nineteen nineties six. That's when the
Speaker 1: Telecommunications Act of nineteen becomes law. You know, I was
Speaker 1: going to make a joke about how they wanted to
Speaker 1: call the Telecommunications Act of nine the Telecommunications Act of
Speaker 1: but it published in nine and they thought it would
Speaker 1: confuse everyone. But then I realized I made that joke
Speaker 1: in the last episode. Well good, I'm glad that you're
Speaker 1: growing as a host. Thanks. Yeah, it doesn't stop me
Speaker 1: from making jokes, It just it just it just prompts
Speaker 1: me to explain why I'm making the same joke. Twice.
Speaker 1: I know, I'm I'm lame. It's okay, I've dealt with it. Okay.
Speaker 1: So this so this act was an FCC attempt to
Speaker 1: to regulate the industry to promote greater competition. Right, yeah,
Speaker 1: again it was yeah yeah, because again it was it
Speaker 1: was a growing industry. This is another example of how
Speaker 1: technology evolves faster than the legal system can necessarily handle.
Speaker 1: So we get these big leaps in technology relatively speaking,
Speaker 1: and then the legal system says, you know, this has
Speaker 1: outgrown the parameters for what we had envisioned because the
Speaker 1: technology can do more than what we what it used
Speaker 1: to be able to. Right. Previously, you know, cable and
Speaker 1: telephones and data had all been very separate, and this
Speaker 1: brought them all under one umbrella. Right, So similar to
Speaker 1: how we see cable companies that do both the transmission
Speaker 1: of data and they provide some of that data as
Speaker 1: in they create content that would also become you know,
Speaker 1: another challenge that that we're still struggling with today because
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's getting very messy. If one person
Speaker 1: owns all the roads but allows everybody to play on
Speaker 1: those roads, net neutrality is maintained and everyone's happy, but
Speaker 1: if everyone owns all the roads and also owns a
Speaker 1: lot of the busses that go on those roads, and
Speaker 1: then decides to let those buses get the express lane
Speaker 1: and everyone else gets the slowly, that's when you start
Speaker 1: getting into problems. So the Telecommunications Act of nineteen was
Speaker 1: sort of a predecessor to some of the acts and
Speaker 1: some of the proposed legislation that would follow to try
Speaker 1: and maintain net neutrality. Um, and of course that's like
Speaker 1: I said, that's a battle that's still ongoing to this day.
Speaker 1: That's when A T and T signs a merger agreement
Speaker 1: with T c I, which was a cable company. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were also working at the time on converting their
Speaker 1: entire network from analog to digital data delivery. So yeah,
Speaker 1: in nineteen, if you remember from our last podcast, this
Speaker 1: is actually when that final electro mechanical switch was switched
Speaker 1: over to computerized switch. I bet there was a big ceremony.
Speaker 1: I hope that electro mechanical switches enjoying retirement. But A T.
Speaker 1: T also went back to the consumer local telephone business
Speaker 1: because it introduced a residential service in New York. So
Speaker 1: first time A T and T gets into the local
Speaker 1: telephone service since it had divested itself of those regional
Speaker 1: bell companies back in two right. Um, they also complet
Speaker 1: did that merger with t c I and started looking
Speaker 1: to acquire a second cable company called Media One. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're really serious about now. And they also rolled out
Speaker 1: the largest DSL initiative in the industry for broadband customers.
Speaker 1: I was never a DSL customer. I was always a
Speaker 1: cable modem customer. But I've got a lot of friends
Speaker 1: who used DSL for both voice and data, and uh yeah,
Speaker 1: that was that was a big deal back then. Oh sure. Well,
Speaker 1: at the time, long distance revenue was decreasing for a
Speaker 1: T and T at a rate about twenty each year
Speaker 1: due to these these changes in the way that the
Speaker 1: world was working, in the way that people were accessing
Speaker 1: information and telecommunications, and uh so, you know, they were
Speaker 1: although they were working and they had spent some hundred
Speaker 1: billion dollars on acquiring these cable TV companies, they were
Speaker 1: still pretty dependent on long distance as as a profit,
Speaker 1: and so they were kind of they were kind of stared. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they had to look at other means of generating revenue
Speaker 1: because with the the threat to long distance looming and
Speaker 1: getting getting worse each year. They knew that if they
Speaker 1: were to have any viability as a as a any
Speaker 1: type of company, let alone a major, enormous company, they
Speaker 1: had to get into new types of business. And so,
Speaker 1: as you know, terror is a great motivator, as it
Speaker 1: turns out, and they they really doubled down on the
Speaker 1: broadband approach and it ended up paying off big time.
Speaker 1: Also in that year, in A T and D started
Speaker 1: research into something one of my favorite subjects because it's
Speaker 1: so crazy and wonky. Quantum computing. Yeah, so there's been
Speaker 1: all over A T T Labs looking into quantum computers. Um.
Speaker 1: We've mentioned quantum computers in earlier episodes of tech Stuff,
Speaker 1: but just to let you guys know, they are crazy, y'all.
Speaker 1: So your basic computer relies on binary uh computer language,
Speaker 1: which are zeros and ones. Your quantum computer relies on
Speaker 1: those are also known as bits. The quantum computer relies
Speaker 1: on cubits. Now a cubit theoretically um actually I guess
Speaker 1: really because there have been quantum computers built, they just
Speaker 1: don't last very long. A cubit can act in superposition,
Speaker 1: meaning that it's both zero and one and all values
Speaker 1: in between at the same time simultaneously. So theoretically you
Speaker 1: can use a significantly powerful quantum computer. It has to
Speaker 1: have a certain number of cubits for this to be viable,
Speaker 1: but you can use a a powerful quantum computer to
Speaker 1: solve certain types of problems much more quickly than you
Speaker 1: would with a classical computer. Not all problems would be
Speaker 1: great in a quantum computer, but if it's a problem,
Speaker 1: for example, trying to figure out which two enormous prime
Speaker 1: numbers were multiplied together to get this particular product, a
Speaker 1: quantum computer can do that way faster than a classical computer.
Speaker 1: Classical computer might take hundreds of years to solve a
Speaker 1: particularly difficult problem. A quantum computer might do it in
Speaker 1: a in an hour. And it's all because it's able
Speaker 1: to solve I'm oversimplifying, but it's able to solve multiple
Speaker 1: versions of the the problem all at the same time,
Speaker 1: and then assign probabilities to which one is the correct answer.
Speaker 1: So A T and T was looking into that as
Speaker 1: early as n so two thousand. Uh all right, Well,
Speaker 1: now they've got the acquisitions of T C I and
Speaker 1: Media One, which makes A T n T the largest
Speaker 1: cable company in the United states. Um, the service is
Speaker 1: called A T and T Broadband, and a T and
Speaker 1: T itself reorganizes again into three major companies. So you've
Speaker 1: got a T and T, A T and T Wireless,
Speaker 1: and a T and T Broadband. And uh, that's also
Speaker 1: the year when data traffic overtakes voice traffic on the
Speaker 1: A T and T network for the first time. UM.
Speaker 1: Not surprising, but I'm sure now there's way more data
Speaker 1: than voice. Has to be overwhelming at this point. Even
Speaker 1: though these these acquisitions of T C I Media one
Speaker 1: were really terrific for A T and T and moving
Speaker 1: them in in a direction that the company thought was
Speaker 1: going to be really great. That they spent over a
Speaker 1: hundred billion on those acquisitions, and they had kind of
Speaker 1: gone into debt in order to do so. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: the company was in a little bit of trouble and
Speaker 1: they were hoping by by separating out into these three
Speaker 1: separate services that they were going to be able to
Speaker 1: isolate that debt and also you know, hopefully raised some
Speaker 1: funds on the stock market, which the folks running the
Speaker 1: stock market kind of picked up on. They sort of
Speaker 1: saw through this clever plan and UM and the company
Speaker 1: would wind up losing another hundred billion of market value
Speaker 1: over the next couple of years UM. So, so the
Speaker 1: company was not doing I mean, it was moving in
Speaker 1: interesting ways, and I think that, you know, doing clever stuff.
Speaker 1: But in the long term the moves they made were
Speaker 1: good choices. But in the short term it meant that
Speaker 1: they suffered quite a bit because you know, we were
Speaker 1: We've talked about how a T and T it was
Speaker 1: built on the foundation of long distance telephone service. When
Speaker 1: that stops becoming a way of generating significant revenue, it
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily matter if your company has diversified, uh, if
Speaker 1: everyone still identifies your company as being a long long
Speaker 1: distance service provider. Right. Also, you know, up until that point,
Speaker 1: they had been they had been depending on long distance
Speaker 1: profits to drive the company. But but long distance was
Speaker 1: losing revenue um at a rate of each year. Yes,
Speaker 1: so it was obvious that they had to start really
Speaker 1: investigating other opportunities. So this broadband opportunity was a chance
Speaker 1: for them to kind of really shift major gears in
Speaker 1: what their company is all about and remain a viable
Speaker 1: company because I mean, you know, fear is a great motivator.
Speaker 1: As it turns out, if you're scared, then you you're
Speaker 1: willing to try some some pretty uh, pretty radical things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and in this case, they really went in broadband, and
Speaker 1: it turns out that it wasn't you know, it wasn't
Speaker 1: a bad idea. In fact, two thousand also was the
Speaker 1: year when a T and T saw more data traffic
Speaker 1: than voice traffic on their network. It was the first
Speaker 1: time that had ever happened. I wouldn't be surprised if
Speaker 1: that is, you know, obviously multiplied many times now because
Speaker 1: look at the enormous amount of data that transfers through
Speaker 1: whether and your calls aren't usually taking up quite as
Speaker 1: much as like YouTube video and you've got you've got
Speaker 1: file transfers. I mean that that takes up a lot
Speaker 1: of space. So I'm sure that that might have even
Speaker 1: been the last year that they saw, you know, or
Speaker 1: maybe the last year they saw voice traffic being greater
Speaker 1: than data traffic. Would not be surprised. Two thousand one, however,
Speaker 1: that's when a T and T Wireless becomes an independent company.
Speaker 1: It spends off from a T and T. Uh, it's
Speaker 1: a it's initial public offering, which you know is is
Speaker 1: stock market terms for for going public and selling shares.
Speaker 1: It's like a debutante ball for stock like that. It
Speaker 1: was the largest I PO in American history at the time. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: big deal. And also that was the year when Comcast
Speaker 1: offered to acquire a T and T broadband, and a
Speaker 1: T and T said, you know what, we will accept
Speaker 1: your kind office, sir, thank you. UM all all of
Speaker 1: this hullabaloo over over, you know, kind of diverging and
Speaker 1: trying to split stuff up and manage their debt didn't
Speaker 1: prevent innovation. Later that year, their customer service system, how
Speaker 1: may I help you debuted more natural language more natural
Speaker 1: language stuff, which I think is probably the point that
Speaker 1: they were trying to come to with all of these
Speaker 1: previous natural language related I mean, maybe not the specific point,
Speaker 1: but they were like, hey, you know what would be
Speaker 1: really useful for this um as an excellent application. So yeah.
Speaker 1: The idea is that when you call in, you get
Speaker 1: a automated response. So it's not an actual quote, real
Speaker 1: human being on the other end, uh end quote. It's
Speaker 1: rather a kind of robot. But they try and have
Speaker 1: as realistic a synthetic voice as possible, and the goal
Speaker 1: is to allow the customer to use whatever language that
Speaker 1: he or she needs to express the problem they're having
Speaker 1: and then it can respond to that. So instead of
Speaker 1: having you wait through a menu where you know, for
Speaker 1: telephone service, press one, for a cable press two, you
Speaker 1: know that kind of thing, you would just say, you
Speaker 1: can hypothetically just talk to the robot and I could
Speaker 1: just be things like, uh, you know, when I call
Speaker 1: usually it's early in the morning, so there's things like
Speaker 1: cable down fixed, now fire bad. Personally, I kind of
Speaker 1: missed the days when I could just punch buttons and
Speaker 1: not have to pretend to talk to a robot. I
Speaker 1: sort of get angry when I talked to rot I
Speaker 1: wind up yelling at them. The fact that we're able
Speaker 1: to get Lauren and in front of a microphone at
Speaker 1: all is a miracle. Every week, uh mostly involves applying
Speaker 1: her with chocolate. Are you suggesting that you are a robot? Oh? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And so the company also launched Natural Voices, which is
Speaker 1: that synthesized voice program. So it was a combination of
Speaker 1: the natural language recognition software and this new synthesized human
Speaker 1: voice that was meant to be as close to a
Speaker 1: natural voice as possible, so it doesn't sound like you're
Speaker 1: speaking to a robot or someone who puts the wrong
Speaker 1: embossis on the wrong salabl um. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you've ever had one of those calls where it's like, hello,
Speaker 1: thank you for calling service, you know, on Tuesday. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just weird. So you know, getting that to be
Speaker 1: more natural obviously creates a better customer experience for most people,
Speaker 1: I would say. Of course, they were also around that
Speaker 1: time working on a bunch of greater greater network related issues.
Speaker 1: In two thousand two, they rolled out yeah new optical
Speaker 1: network which was the idea of the optical network was
Speaker 1: to decrease the problems that would arise in the event
Speaker 1: of a natural disaster or a massive failure. So it's
Speaker 1: kind of a response emergency response for an infrastructure, meaning
Speaker 1: that if there were say a hurricane hitting the Eastern
Speaker 1: Cboard and the phone lines went down, this would help
Speaker 1: them respond faster to get that repaired and return service,
Speaker 1: which is obviously important for any kind of emergency situation,
Speaker 1: so very important, and then work. They also worked to
Speaker 1: branch out as an enterprise networking company. Before they had
Speaker 1: really been marketing their their electronics and computer services to
Speaker 1: the average consumer. Now that We're thinking, you know, there's
Speaker 1: huge market in the enterprise world where we can we
Speaker 1: can market directly to other large companies and say, let
Speaker 1: us handle these systems for you. We know what we're doing,
Speaker 1: we're experts in this field, and give us money the
Speaker 1: end of that sentence. But yeah. Two thousand three, Uh,
Speaker 1: they rolled out the voice Tone product, which allowed customers
Speaker 1: to speak with computers using natural language. So very similar
Speaker 1: to them may I Help you, but this time this
Speaker 1: was a product that you could get if you were
Speaker 1: an enterprise, for example, and you needed to have that
Speaker 1: same sort of capability. So something that have been developed
Speaker 1: for in house a T and T use or at
Speaker 1: least within their customer service department. Yeah, it's an actual product.
Speaker 1: Always a good idea if you are able to create
Speaker 1: a you know, a usable system for that that's modular
Speaker 1: that other people can use in their own networks. Uh.
Speaker 1: Two thousand four, they introduced Voice over Internet Protocol or
Speaker 1: VOID for customers. This obviously is allowing you to make
Speaker 1: voice phone calls over Internet protocol. So it's using that
Speaker 1: same packet switching kind of software that uh, your regular
Speaker 1: Internet traffic uses, but for voice trend uh. Voice communication. UM,
Speaker 1: I had friends who had voipe call like telephones voice telephones,
Speaker 1: which were The idea was that, you know, using the
Speaker 1: data service was sometimes a cheaper alternative to using voice
Speaker 1: service like regular voice lines. The there are, or at
Speaker 1: least there were some drawbacks with void phones, especially early days,
Speaker 1: involved like if you were to dial in NUM, it
Speaker 1: wouldn't necessarily know to route that call to the closest
Speaker 1: center because yeah, because it it would be over Internet protocol.
Speaker 1: Not Yeah, I might make a call, Yeah might. I
Speaker 1: might make a call in Atlanta and get Tucson, which
Speaker 1: is terribly helpful if my house is on fire, unless
Speaker 1: my house happens to be in Tucson, in which case
Speaker 1: I don't know why I'm in Atlanta making that call.
Speaker 1: Come me neither. Yeah, you know, you know, stranger things. Um.
Speaker 1: Also in two thousand four, company acquired a ten T
Speaker 1: wireless that would be Singular, which was owned by a
Speaker 1: little company called SBC, which is going to become extremely
Speaker 1: important in the next year. Yeah, yeah, why don't we
Speaker 1: just go ahead to two thousand five? So SBC, alright, SBC.
Speaker 1: Now this is one of those companies again that had
Speaker 1: named itself after its initials. So Originally SBC stood for
Speaker 1: something not just not just those letters, right, Yeah, that
Speaker 1: would be Southwestern Bell Company a k a. It was
Speaker 1: one of the baby bells that split off way back
Speaker 1: in two. It started out as the smallest baby bell
Speaker 1: but um but under the lead of a man named
Speaker 1: Ed Whittaker who had been working for Southwestern Bell all
Speaker 1: his life. UM through through a whole lot of a
Speaker 1: very sad the mechinations of his to bring the company
Speaker 1: into all of this data in cable and et cetera
Speaker 1: stuff that A T and T is was trying some
Speaker 1: very wise acquisitions and some very wise other baby bell acquisitions,
Speaker 1: meeting them become the largest baby bell. Yeah. That two
Speaker 1: decision that was handed down to divest A T and
Speaker 1: T of all these properties. Uh, you know, the intent
Speaker 1: was to try and break up these monopolies. SBC had
Speaker 1: been growing year over year and acquiring some of those
Speaker 1: bell operating carriers. Uh. So, the while it avoided a
Speaker 1: monopoly with A T and T at that moment, it
Speaker 1: kind of ended up sort of creating at least, if
Speaker 1: not a monopoly, a mega company in SPC. And then
Speaker 1: in two thousand five, SBC, you know, plays the trump
Speaker 1: card by acquiring A T and T. So the the
Speaker 1: sub company has now become the parent company, although they
Speaker 1: then chose to change their name to A T and T.
Speaker 1: Right um. And this was only a sixteen billion dollar transaction,
Speaker 1: And I mean I feel very silly saying only next
Speaker 1: to sixteen billion, but considering what A T and T
Speaker 1: had been worth in the past, that was a pittance.
Speaker 1: I mean this this was an indicator of how poorly
Speaker 1: the company was doing at the time. By the way,
Speaker 1: if you feel that I am worth only sixteen billion,
Speaker 1: I'll take it right now and do whatever podcast or
Speaker 1: not do whatever podcast you want me to, all right.
Speaker 1: So that's that's uh. In fact, you know what I'm generous.
Speaker 1: You get two for one eight billion apiece. All right.
Speaker 1: So one of A T and T's former regional carriers
Speaker 1: acquired A T and T. That's the story here. It
Speaker 1: reunites those companies. So now we've got long distance and
Speaker 1: regional reunited formally. Keeping mind A T. T had already
Speaker 1: gotten into regional calls again starting with that New York market.
Speaker 1: And UH SBC is now A T and T Incorporated,
Speaker 1: and the company owns around eleven of the twenty four
Speaker 1: bell system companies. Now, keep in mind, regional operating carriers
Speaker 1: were a kind of representative of larger buckets of companies.
Speaker 1: So twenty four total out of the you know that
Speaker 1: fell within the seven regional ones, A T T now
Speaker 1: has eleven of those twenty four backs. So it's not
Speaker 1: as big as it was before the judgment was handed
Speaker 1: down in that case, but it's it's big. It's big again.
Speaker 1: It actually kind of amazes me. I didn't come across anything.
Speaker 1: I didn't really dig deep enough, I think, but I
Speaker 1: didn't come across any news items about whether or not
Speaker 1: there was there were any alarms raised over the fact
Speaker 1: that SBC, a former you know, part of A T
Speaker 1: and T, was now going to acquire A T and
Speaker 1: T and therefore partially negate this judgment. I didn't see anything,
Speaker 1: but then I would imagine there had to have been
Speaker 1: some I I imagine that they had their eye on
Speaker 1: the situation, and I mean they can't not have. I mean,
Speaker 1: the federal government is all up in a ten T
Speaker 1: s fries. Yeah. Yeah, and especially recently. I mean it
Speaker 1: it's but it's kind of funny because we've had this
Speaker 1: story multiple times. We've done three podcasts about a T
Speaker 1: and T and the story of a T T getting
Speaker 1: really big in the government stepping in and saying, hey,
Speaker 1: let's take a look at this, guys, has happened several
Speaker 1: times already. UH, don't know when we're gonna learn that lesson,
Speaker 1: I guess. Anyway, let's let's move on to two thousand seven. Well, okay,
Speaker 1: what one more important point for two thousand five, which
Speaker 1: is going to lead directly into two thousand and seven,
Speaker 1: is that around this time, Steve Jobs began working with Singular,
Speaker 1: which again UM part of SPC, to develop the iPhone
Speaker 1: and features specifically for it, right and then and that
Speaker 1: that agreement included a five year exclusivity agreement, meaning that
Speaker 1: Singular would be the only carrier to carry the iPhone
Speaker 1: for five years, right and uh. In addition to that
Speaker 1: like roughly ten percent of iPhone sales and stores a
Speaker 1: slice of Apple's iTunes revenue um and this was all
Speaker 1: for the development money that Singular Labs was providing, and
Speaker 1: also um for a for a new a new feature
Speaker 1: called visual Voicemail, which would become the consternation of many
Speaker 1: human people several years later, um and uh and and
Speaker 1: revenue sharing agreement that would work out to about ten
Speaker 1: bucks a month for every iPhone customers a T and
Speaker 1: T or singular at that time bill right, So then
Speaker 1: SPC acquires a T and T, SPC becomes a T
Speaker 1: and T Incorporated, which means that the deer becomes a
Speaker 1: T and T essentially again. So that means that the
Speaker 1: iPhone in two thousand seven, when it premiers and blows
Speaker 1: everybody away, Steve Jobs up there on that stage and
Speaker 1: showing off this gorgeous device that everyone didn't know they needed,
Speaker 1: and now we're convinced that absolutely they needed this right now.
Speaker 1: Gosh darn it, um would go exclusively in the United
Speaker 1: States to a T and T, which was a huge
Speaker 1: boon for them. I mean that it was you know,
Speaker 1: it's hard to really put into into words how influential
Speaker 1: the iPhone has has been, because even if you don't
Speaker 1: own an iPhone, if you want a smartphone, the iPhone
Speaker 1: has influenced that design obviously. I mean a lot of
Speaker 1: the design elements that you see, while they may not
Speaker 1: be a you know, you might not say, oh, they
Speaker 1: copied Apple. Maybe they went very much other way to
Speaker 1: not copy Apple, but that means that the Apple influenced them.
Speaker 1: So it's pretty amazing stuff. And of course, I mean,
Speaker 1: I remember the craze that went out when the iPhone
Speaker 1: came out. Me I was like, I'm gonna wait a
Speaker 1: few more months because Android's coming, and uh and so
Speaker 1: I did. I waited it out and got myself an
Speaker 1: Android phone. My wife has an iPhone and we fight.
Speaker 1: That's a different podcast. UM two seven was also the
Speaker 1: year that A T and T announced that that wireless
Speaker 1: services were going to be the main focus at the company,
Speaker 1: And I mean that was kind of obvious following their
Speaker 1: huge investment of the inphone. In hindsight, we can definitely
Speaker 1: say it's obvious. But keep in mind that before the iPhone,
Speaker 1: and while wireless was finally becoming important because everyone was
Speaker 1: adopting cell phones, smartphones had not really taken off in
Speaker 1: the United States and the consumer market at all, and
Speaker 1: no one could have predicted how big they would become
Speaker 1: so shortly, right, so that that was a very wise
Speaker 1: kind of move on their part. You know, some people
Speaker 1: might say it was a little late on their part,
Speaker 1: but I think considering that there was no way of
Speaker 1: knowing at that time what was going to happen, it
Speaker 1: was it was the right move, and and you know
Speaker 1: they would spend seventy billion on acquiring Spectrum and on
Speaker 1: building out wireless networks in the next three years alone,
Speaker 1: So they were pretty serious about it. Yeah, although if
Speaker 1: you lived in New York or San Francisco, you had
Speaker 1: a lot to say about that A T and T
Speaker 1: service in those early days on the iPhone. I don't
Speaker 1: live there, but since we work in technology and a
Speaker 1: lot of our peers work in San Francisco and New York,
Speaker 1: we were bombarded with complaints heard heard a bunch about
Speaker 1: that one. UM. Also in two thousand and seven, as
Speaker 1: a side note, at At At Whittaker announced his retirement from
Speaker 1: A T and T. He would go on to UM
Speaker 1: basically turn General General Motor Company around from its bankruptcy
Speaker 1: in two thousand and I always find it very admirable
Speaker 1: to see people who are just incredible leaders move on
Speaker 1: from one position to another, not even necessarily for for profit,
Speaker 1: but because they like the challenge of taking a company
Speaker 1: that's struggling perhaps or maybe just not performing up to
Speaker 1: expectations and really turning it around. I always find those
Speaker 1: stories interesting, especially I kind of I kind of want
Speaker 1: to look more into into this into this dude because
Speaker 1: he was, um, you know, he started as an industrial
Speaker 1: engineer and and worked in engineering before he moved all
Speaker 1: the way up through the company to become its at CEO.
Speaker 1: That's also a phenomenal story because what weo could and
Speaker 1: we hear all those stories about people who just come
Speaker 1: out of business schools and go into leadership roles without
Speaker 1: having actually worked in the rank and file of various companies.
Speaker 1: It's always fun to have. Maybe we'll put that atlticer
Speaker 1: down as a potential person to cover in a future episode. Um,
Speaker 1: all right, well let's take another quick break to thank
Speaker 1: our sponsor. Alright, So two thousand and seven, we've got
Speaker 1: that a T and T with the iPhone owned. They
Speaker 1: have the exclusivity deal, which would not last uh five years,
Speaker 1: Like you wouldn't be two thousand twelve before the iPhone
Speaker 1: was available on other carriers in the United States. It
Speaker 1: would actually be two thousand eleven. Do you have anything
Speaker 1: between twenty Alright, So nothing happened in two thousands eight
Speaker 1: nine or two universe ceased to exist briefly. We all
Speaker 1: just took a break, you know, we were all you know,
Speaker 1: they're watching television or something. Two thousand eleven rolls around,
Speaker 1: and a T and T s exclusive hold in the
Speaker 1: iPhone in the United States ends. Uh. And also a
Speaker 1: T and T makes a move to acquire a rival
Speaker 1: cellular company, T Mobile. Yeah, and that one, in fact,
Speaker 1: would get the strong attention of f CC, Yeah, and
Speaker 1: the Department of Justice, as it turns out. And so
Speaker 1: so I remember hearing about that, and immediately my response
Speaker 1: was please, no, no, no, no, never. Why Because a
Speaker 1: T and T and T Mobile, while you know, A
Speaker 1: T T the second largest cellular service company in the
Speaker 1: United States, the first being Verizon, third is Sprint, and
Speaker 1: the fourth is T Mobile. Now, A T and T
Speaker 1: and T Mobile both work on the same general technology
Speaker 1: for cellular service, whereas Verizon and Sprint work on the
Speaker 1: other one. So the one that A T and T
Speaker 1: and T Mobile uses as the one that most of
Speaker 1: the world uses. And I thought, well, that means that
Speaker 1: while it looks like your choice is only going down
Speaker 1: from from one and four to one and three for
Speaker 1: the major carriers, keep in mind they're smaller carriers in
Speaker 1: the West, and the major carriers, your choices go down
Speaker 1: from one and four to one and three and effect,
Speaker 1: it really meant that if you wanted that particular type
Speaker 1: of technology where you could theoretically be able to use
Speaker 1: your phone in other parts of the world depending on
Speaker 1: how your plan worked that out. Um, you only had
Speaker 1: one choice if A T and T were to acquire
Speaker 1: T Mobile, at least one major choice that had a
Speaker 1: lot of support in the United States. So I was
Speaker 1: very much against it. I was not the only one.
Speaker 1: There were lots of people that were just leading the
Speaker 1: charge against this potential merger. A T. T and T
Speaker 1: Mobile would meet with the United States government multiple times
Speaker 1: to kind of give testimony as to why they thought
Speaker 1: this was a great idea. A T and T claimed
Speaker 1: that this would create thousands of new jobs, whereas the company,
Speaker 1: the organizations and parts of the government that were opposed
Speaker 1: to this said exactly the opposite, that it was going
Speaker 1: to end up eliminating jobs. UM, particularly in in various
Speaker 1: regions of the United States where they had major operating
Speaker 1: centers that they were afraid would shut down as a
Speaker 1: result of this this merger. So yeah, it was a
Speaker 1: big deal, um approximately thirty nine billion dollar deal. UH
Speaker 1: Sprint launched a project called No Takeover, so Sprint sprints
Speaker 1: like you know, guys, I know we're not directly involved
Speaker 1: in this merger, but we would be directly affected by it.
Speaker 1: So that's why they launched a campaign to raise awareness
Speaker 1: and to to get some more traction against the move,
Speaker 1: and the U s Department of Justice and the FCC
Speaker 1: opposed the deal. E T and T would eventually withdraw
Speaker 1: the deal right around the end of twent beginning of
Speaker 1: and the Department of Justice actually said, we feel the
Speaker 1: combination of A T and T and T Mobile would
Speaker 1: result in tens of millions of consumers facing higher prices,
Speaker 1: your choices and low quality products for wireless services, which
Speaker 1: uh I think in the tech bis we call a
Speaker 1: sick burn. Uh yeah, So the merger does not go through,
Speaker 1: it it falls through. Now this was a big deal
Speaker 1: because we also were talking about T Mobile's parent company
Speaker 1: in dire financial straits and so, but T Mobile was
Speaker 1: operating independently pretty much already at that point. Anyway, it
Speaker 1: was just a question of who was going to buy
Speaker 1: it up or was it going to just continue to
Speaker 1: be um, you know, sort of a self sustaining entity.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and twelve, uh A T T gets
Speaker 1: sued again by the United States Department of Justice. The
Speaker 1: Department of Justice alleged that the carrier intentionally neglected to
Speaker 1: authenticate users of the IP relay service. That's a tool
Speaker 1: that was used by or it is used by people
Speaker 1: who have hearing impairment. Uh. The way it works is
Speaker 1: they can type in messages and a communications assistant reads
Speaker 1: the message out loud to a caller. So it's kind
Speaker 1: of a you know, it's a service so that someone
Speaker 1: who might be deaf or unable to communicate in a
Speaker 1: way that that most people could understand could contact a
Speaker 1: middle person who would relay the information. Well, the problem
Speaker 1: with this approach was that scammers were starting to use
Speaker 1: it as a means of getting around um laws that
Speaker 1: that would prevent them, like they would end up like
Speaker 1: let's say you've heard, of course, of the Nigerian scam.
Speaker 1: The idea of this person who is has shares your
Speaker 1: last name but does not have a direct relation to you,
Speaker 1: has died and there's all this money that I want
Speaker 1: to get out of the country and just for a
Speaker 1: small cut of the money, I will let you have
Speaker 1: the lion's share of it. I just need you know,
Speaker 1: ten dollars to transfer it. But but but put forth
Speaker 1: a little bit first, Yeah, so that I can, I
Speaker 1: can do the thing. It's all scam right. So it
Speaker 1: turns out scammers were using the the IP relay service
Speaker 1: to try and target people, and so the f C,
Speaker 1: c UH and the d o J both had kind
Speaker 1: of what A T. T said, we're conflicting um directives
Speaker 1: because the FCC said, if you're a carrier, you have
Speaker 1: to support this service because otherwise you are not servicing
Speaker 1: the hearing impaired community. The Department of Justice said, you
Speaker 1: have to verify the identity of the people who want
Speaker 1: to use this service so that you aren't allowing scam
Speaker 1: artists to target victims. And A T and T said,
Speaker 1: what are we supposed to do? We're stuck in between
Speaker 1: these two directives where we have to give this, but
Speaker 1: we also have to do that. And Department of Justice
Speaker 1: was sent saying essentially, we don't buy it. You just
Speaker 1: have to figure out way to verify this. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: gotta you gotta have a verification system um and from
Speaker 1: one I have and seen any resolution to that. So
Speaker 1: I don't know that that particular case may still be
Speaker 1: ongoing as of the recording of this podcast. If it
Speaker 1: has resolved, I could not find any information. That's one
Speaker 1: of the problems of following up on on reporting about these. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you'll you'll hear about it when the lawsuit is leveled,
Speaker 1: but then there's not a lot of follow up. Resolutions
Speaker 1: to lawsuits are occasionally considered less news worthy. That's unfortunate.
Speaker 1: That same year, in two thousand twelve, A T and
Speaker 1: T made a A hundred twenty six point four billion
Speaker 1: dollars in revenues. That's according to their two thousand twelve
Speaker 1: financial report, which I looked up just before we came
Speaker 1: in here. Uh that was a two point four percent
Speaker 1: growth over two thousand eleven revenues. And in that same report,
Speaker 1: A T and T VP of Consumer Product Planning and
Speaker 1: Research said that A T. T was looking at mobile payments,
Speaker 1: as in using your smartphone as your payment way, Like
Speaker 1: if you go to a restaurant, you tap your smartphone
Speaker 1: against that, you know, the whole NFC wallet kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: I think that's great. I really look forward to the
Speaker 1: to being able to use my smartphone to pay for
Speaker 1: stuff as long as it's secure. But the biggest issue
Speaker 1: I have is, I mean beyond security, which clearly that
Speaker 1: needs to be number one But number two is my
Speaker 1: concern that there are all these different systems that are
Speaker 1: being proposed that different companies are behind, Like Google has
Speaker 1: Google Wallet, A T T has this other one, and
Speaker 1: then you've got these other companies that are looking at
Speaker 1: it too. If all of them are using proprietary language
Speaker 1: for their systems, that means that the merchants have to
Speaker 1: choose which system are they going to support, because you know,
Speaker 1: I doubt that most of them are going to have
Speaker 1: some sort of multiple support. That would be expensive for
Speaker 1: them to be part of all these different programs. So
Speaker 1: a merchant has to make it kind of a decision
Speaker 1: like which one is likely to be the most popular,
Speaker 1: That's the one I'm going to support, Which means that
Speaker 1: as a consumer, your choices are limited. You may have
Speaker 1: no choice at all. You may have to use a
Speaker 1: specific type of phone if you want to take advant
Speaker 1: to that kind of service. I don't like that. I
Speaker 1: like it when everybody is using using the same basic
Speaker 1: set of language, so that the merchant can have a
Speaker 1: single device and no matter what phone you use, you
Speaker 1: can use it as long as it's compatible with that device.
Speaker 1: I think that most um app creators these days realize
Speaker 1: the efficiency that the profit in making things available to
Speaker 1: multiple platforms, so or I guess multiple um devices right right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just it's tough when the the service provider is
Speaker 1: also the one who creates the hardware, as is the case. Well,
Speaker 1: A T and T does not directly create the hardware,
Speaker 1: but they create a layer of firmware and software that
Speaker 1: that hardware carries. So it definitely, again it's something to
Speaker 1: watch a few years, the Department Justice will step in
Speaker 1: and say, hey, I know that we keep talking to
Speaker 1: you guys, and I'm really sorry. I didn't bring this
Speaker 1: up last time, but we didn't know that it existed.
Speaker 1: Then yeah, we'll see if that happens. But there's also
Speaker 1: some other interesting stuff mentioned in that report that A
Speaker 1: T and T is working on stuff that I find
Speaker 1: really exciting. Again, the whole proprietary network stuff is that
Speaker 1: it could be an issue, but it's still exciting technologies
Speaker 1: like vehicle to vehicle communications. A T and T labs
Speaker 1: are looking into that vehicle to road communications. We've talked
Speaker 1: about that on tech stuff. We've talked about on forward thinking.
Speaker 1: We you know the idea of having these communicating vehicles
Speaker 1: and communicating infrastructure Yeah. A t T is actually working
Speaker 1: with several auto manufacturers, from A Tesla to BMW, Nissan
Speaker 1: and Ford um to to provide the Internet Internet connectivity
Speaker 1: to new automate automobiles. Yeah, which is fantastic. I mean
Speaker 1: when you think about it, that means that cars can
Speaker 1: communicate with one another, traffic can smooth out over time,
Speaker 1: you can have that sort of collision detection technology built
Speaker 1: in there. In other words, you can make driving safer,
Speaker 1: uh slightly more automated, not to the point where the
Speaker 1: car is taking over or you, but the car at
Speaker 1: least is able to alert you to things that otherwise
Speaker 1: you would not know or even help the the infrastructure,
Speaker 1: the traffic infrastructure respond to dynamic changes so or to
Speaker 1: you know, just get just get the music that you
Speaker 1: want to listen to from Pandora, Spotify or something like
Speaker 1: that to play in your car. What I want I
Speaker 1: want them to develop a technology where when my car
Speaker 1: pulls up next to another car and I can see
Speaker 1: that the driver in that other car is really rocking
Speaker 1: out to something but I can't hear it, I can
Speaker 1: find out what music they're listening to and then listen
Speaker 1: to that myself, just to find out, you know, is
Speaker 1: that really worth it? Is? They they would just they
Speaker 1: would just get J pop for me all the time,
Speaker 1: as you have revealed to everybody on Forward Taking. Speaking
Speaker 1: of Forward Thinking, if you are interested in automated automobiles,
Speaker 1: we just did another episode on that, so that should
Speaker 1: be coming out soon. Yeah, so definitely go check out
Speaker 1: that podcast. We have a lot of fun on that show.
Speaker 1: So if you enjoy tech stuff, I'm sure you would
Speaker 1: love Forward Thinking. Yeah. Um, so does that bring us up?
Speaker 1: It does? Yes. That's when A T and T announced
Speaker 1: it would acquire Leap Wireless for one point two billion dollars.
Speaker 1: It's also when you Verse, which is a T and
Speaker 1: T s broadband television and internet service, had its first
Speaker 1: billion dollar revenue month, a billion dollars in one month,
Speaker 1: I think. I think in two thousand twelve. They made
Speaker 1: ten billion dollars over the course of the year, so
Speaker 1: one billion dollar month that that was. That's huge growth.
Speaker 1: That's that's pretty enormous. You know. Um, that's exciting for
Speaker 1: A T and T. Yeah. A T and T is
Speaker 1: currently because we are recording this podcast in October, they
Speaker 1: are currently the second largest wireless provider after Verizon. UM
Speaker 1: According to Forbes, one of A T and t s
Speaker 1: growing businesses is in providing data plans for tablet owners,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, that's they're just seeing that more
Speaker 1: and more tablet owners are subscribing to these these data
Speaker 1: plans through A T and T, which is both good
Speaker 1: news and bad news. It's good news because it's a
Speaker 1: growing industry, it's a growing business, and it's growing market.
Speaker 1: The bad news is it's not as profitable as some
Speaker 1: of their other businesses. So while it's growing, it's not
Speaker 1: creating the same revenue generation as some of their other businesses.
Speaker 1: And that's also partially due to the fact that smaller
Speaker 1: wireless companies like T Mobile and Sprint are providing really
Speaker 1: steep competition through the price competitions that remind me competition
Speaker 1: through competitions. Yes, that was very competitive pricing. Um, I
Speaker 1: mean it's it's the kind of price wars that remind
Speaker 1: me of that long distance exactly. Like like A T
Speaker 1: and T had a quick uh head start with iPhone
Speaker 1: and iPad stuff uh and then uh now the other companies,
Speaker 1: in order to make up for that that head start,
Speaker 1: have offered really competitive pricing, which means A T and
Speaker 1: T either has to follow suit or find some other
Speaker 1: way of making their service so attractive that the the
Speaker 1: higher prices feels worthwhile to the consumer. Right. Um. Also,
Speaker 1: just this month, the FCC adopted an agreement between A
Speaker 1: T and T, Dish Network Corporation, and a bunch of
Speaker 1: other smaller wireless companies to help regulate more wireless bandwidths.
Speaker 1: And that's because A T and T currently owns a
Speaker 1: band of frequencies in in a one of those powerful
Speaker 1: signal like seven herds kind of kind of bands, and
Speaker 1: their their concession to this plan will let smaller local
Speaker 1: providers get better access to the to the band, which
Speaker 1: should encourage manufacturers to make and sell more phones for
Speaker 1: that range and also give customers more options and which
Speaker 1: wireless provider to adopt. So a T and T owns
Speaker 1: a band that's adjacent to this other one, and it's
Speaker 1: sort of an interoperability kind of approach absolutely, and and
Speaker 1: and Dish Network is related to that because they are
Speaker 1: also trying to um decrease the strength of the signal
Speaker 1: that they are using in order to allow other carriers
Speaker 1: to horn in on it here and there. So I
Speaker 1: mean this could be a deal that could work out
Speaker 1: really well for everyone, and I'm looking forward to seeing
Speaker 1: where it goes. Yeah, yeah, So, I mean, the company
Speaker 1: has been around for more than a century. It has
Speaker 1: had uh an incredible story. We've only just touched on it.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously we gave kind of a high level
Speaker 1: glance year by year, but there are a lot of
Speaker 1: different individual stories in here that we could touch on,
Speaker 1: including things like, you know, telling more about Shockley and
Speaker 1: his contributions and the controversy around them, or Whittaker and
Speaker 1: his story. So you know, we'll probably do more episodes
Speaker 1: that are related to this after we you know, cover
Speaker 1: other topics obviously. Sure, if anything really piqued your interest,
Speaker 1: let us know about that. Yeah, definitely let us know
Speaker 1: if anything in here, you know, you say I want
Speaker 1: to know more about that. Maybe you've always wanted to
Speaker 1: know a much more technical explanation of how cellular phones
Speaker 1: work in those cellular towers and the headshakes, and maybe
Speaker 1: you wanna inspire both Lauren and myself with fear that
Speaker 1: we have to cover it in an intelligent way. If
Speaker 1: that's the case, or you just have some other topic
Speaker 1: you think we should cover, let us no send us
Speaker 1: an email or addresses tech stuff at Discovery dot com
Speaker 1: or drop us a line on the social networks that
Speaker 1: we inhabit that would include Twitter, Facebook, and Tumbler, or
Speaker 1: handle it all three of those is text stuff hs
Speaker 1: W and Lauren and I will talk to you again
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Speaker 1: Does it have staff works dot com