The 'new' AT&T debuts

Within hours of getting California's approval of its merger, AT&T and SBC unveiled their new company.

The California PUC's approval was the final hurdle for the deal, and AT&T Inc. was born via press release, to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under AT&T's former 'T' symbol. Still to come, on Monday, is a new logo.

"We are ready to meet the needs of a new generation of customers in a new era of communications and entertainment," said Edward E. Whitacre, chairman and CEO of AT&T Inc, in a prepared statement. "The combination of SBC and AT&T companies gives us the local, global, and wireless network resources and the expertise to set the standard for delivering meaningful innovations and making the promise of integrated communications and entertainment a reality for consumers and businesses. This combination is more powerful because of our shared heritage of innovation, service quality, reliability and integrity."

"SBC will change [its] name to AT&T," said Jeffrey Kagan, telecom industry analyst, in an email post. "Today that is a part of the story. But as the months and years pass and all this hoopla dies down, the only thing that people will remember is the company is called AT&T. The name will live on. That has to touch just about everyone if they stop for a minute and think about it."

Whitacre promised the new company will hit the ground running, but competitors are hoping the process of integrating the two companies, which formally begins today, will create enough distraction that AT&T will lose competitive ground.

The California PUC also approved the Verizon-MCI merger. Verizon officials are still planning to close that deal either in December or early January.