Stephen Colbert Explains the Cingular/AT&T/BellSouth Merger

Comments

1. Electoral College Dropout says:
   January 17, 2007 at 6:49 pm

   I am positively wetting myself in anticipation of O’Reilly’s appearance on Colbert’s show. I may even watch O’Reilly that day to see Colbert. Nah.
2. Bon Jour, Pee Wee says:
   January 17, 2007 at 8:09 pm

   This is funny, because it’s true.
3. Gilbert Tang, Jr. says:
   January 17, 2007 at 8:16 pm

   This is bloody brilliant.
4. JT says:
   January 17, 2007 at 10:37 pm

   The oil companies did the same thing; broken up in the ’80s but then later were allowed to get back together. Exxon/Mobile

   Some how they manage to $$convince$$ FCC dudes that not having to compete is important to the health of the industry and thus better for the consumer.
5. Cal says:
   January 18, 2007 at 2:04 am

   > Some how they manage to $$convince$$ FCC
   > dudes that not having to compete is important
   > to the health of the industry and thus better > for the consumer

   The only real competition is in cell service and Internet. Landline long-distance is a dying industry (and can be defeated by dial-arounds anyway… remember the 10-10-321 ads?).

   For cell service, there’s still the same number of competitors as before, Cingular just got brought back into the AT&T fold.

   For Internet there’s no real difference either–it’s still the local monopoly telecom versus the cable companies, and (soon) long-distance WiFi competitors. This doesn’t affect that battle either.

   The only thing I can think of it affecting would be long-distance trunk line market, but I think that’s still vastly over-built and divided (among Sprint, the remnants of MCI, Verizon, etc).
6. joelion says:
   January 18, 2007 at 3:43 am

   anyone have a link to the entire segment? It explains the Cramer bit at the beginning, and has a lot of other Cramer-esqe stock tips.