Cingular to stay Cingular

Cingular Wireless today dismissed speculation that it would revert to the name AT&T, following the lead of its newly renamed majority owner SBC.

A Cingular spokesman said today that the Cingular name is “alive and well,” and while AT&T would use the resale of the Cingular service under the AT&T brand as part of its wireline service bundles, Cingular would continue to operate as an independent entity, marketing its Cingular Wireless to customers nationally. The arrangement is similar to AT&T’s pre-merger plans to relaunch wireless services under the name AT&T Mobile as a mobile virtual network operator using Sprint’s network--now, however, the network will be Cingular, and AT&T will see a portion of its revenues refunded due to its ownership stake in the carrier.

The merged SBC-AT&T officially changed its name to AT&T and launched its new marketing campaign, complete with new logo. But amidst the coverage USA Today and other outlets reported that the new AT&T would use its 60% ownership stake to change Cingular’s name to AT&T. The newspaper quoted AT&T CEO and Chairman Ed Whitacre as saying that the Cingular brand would be dropped in favor of the AT&T name in all but a few markets, and that BellSouth was not resisting the change. Even before today’s batch of articles, wild speculation has been brewing over the fate of the Cingular name.

The Cingular spokesman said both its parents have the right to offer Cingular service under their own names--it was part of the original joint venture agreement SBC and BellSouth signed four years ago. Until today, however, neither company has chosen to push their own company’s brand over Cingular’s when bundling wireless into their service packages. Though BellSouth has not announced any intention to do so, it could offer Cingular service as a BellSouth-branded product.