SBC Communications Announces Plan to Utilize AT&T Brand/add one

SBC Communications Announces Plan to Utilize AT&T Brand/add one

portfolio of products, services and customer care. The AT&T brand is especially strong in the critical enterprise market, where leading chief information officers and industry experts widely acknowledge it as the brand of choice and where it is strongly associated with industry innovation and leadership. Additionally, it has almost universal awareness as a communications brand: Internal research shows that in the United States, consumer awareness of the AT&T brand is 98 percent and business awareness is virtually 100 percent, while global awareness is nearly as high.

“The AT&T brand reflects what customers are looking for in a provider,” Whitacre said. “They want the latest technology and services, but they also want reliability, quality and trustworthiness. Only the AT&T brand offers this ideal combination of traits.”

Neither SBC nor AT&T residential, business or wholesale customers are required to take action as a result of today’s announcement. They will continue to be served by their current provider as they have been in the past. They should order services, pay bills and request help from their current provider as they always have. Customers can visit www.sbc.com/newsroom for more details.

Strengthening a 120-Year Heritage for the 21st Century

The communications industry is currently in the midst of the most substantial technology change in more than 100 years. IP allows the delivery of voice, data, video and entertainment services over a single network infrastructure, enabling integration of services like never before. Ultimately, the SBC-AT&T merger is driven by the objective to deliver a full range of these integrated IP services to customers, accessible seamlessly via wireline or wireless connections.

“The brand we associate with the invention of the telecommunications industry is the brand that will soon represent the re-invention of communications and entertainment,” Whitacre said. “The combination of SBC and AT&T will bring together the right assets and the right strategy to be a very strong competitor in this new IP-based services market, and we fully intend to make the most of this once-in-a-century opportunity.”

This strategy will be enabled by the combination of SBC’s and AT&T’s complementary strengths. In fact, SBC local service and broadband capabilities – 50.2 million access lines and 6.5 million DSL lines in service – and the advanced and powerful AT&T global IP backbone network and software infrastructure will give the new company unparalleled IP assets in the marketplace. Together, the two companies can maximize those assets and develop new IP innovations more effectively than either company could on its own. In addition, SBC companies offer nationwide wireless coverage through Cingular Wireless, which has more than 52.3 million subscribers across the country. SBC owns 60 percent of Cingular.

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About SBC

SBC Communications Inc. is a Fortune 50 company whose subsidiaries, operating under the SBC brand, provide a full range of voice, data, networking, e-business, directory publishing and advertising, and related services to businesses, consumers and other telecommunications providers. SBC holds a 60 percent ownership interest in Cingular Wireless, which serves more than 52 million wireless customers. SBC companies provide high-speed DSL Internet access lines to more American consumers than any other provider and are among the nation’s leading providers of Internet services. SBC companies also offer satellite TV service. Additional information about SBC and SBC products and services is available at www.sbc.com.