How they are related: AT&T and AT&T.

Don’t forget, AT&T Wireless was the first wireless provider to offer nationwide plans, in my area people were trying to sign up for service in the next metro area over, which had AT&T Wireless, since Cellular One didn’t offer nationwide plans. Eventually AT&T Wireless bought out the Cellular One network in my area. AT&T Wireless was the corporate wireless provider of choice back then.

People have short memories. They look only at the last year of AT&T Wireless, which was indeed horrible. A lot of that blame goes to NTT Docomo, which invested billions in AT&T Wireless, with stipulations that let AT&T down the path of destruction. AT&T Wireless was all set to switch to CDMA from TDMA, a move that would have solved a lot of their technical problems related to under-capacity problems in key markets like NYC. Instead, at NTT Docomo’s insistince, they went to the technologically inferior GSM system, and made things worse by keeping TDMA/AMPS at the superior 800 MHz frequency, and relegating GSM to the inferior 1900 MHz frequency. They alienated more customers by selling 1900 MHz only GSM phones, because they soon expanded their GSM service to 800 MHz, and all the people with the older phones were not able to take advantage of their entire network.

It’s questionable that the Cingular brand has a lot of value anyway. Look at the various surveys on wireless quality, and Cingular is always last, or close to last.