SBC To Acquire AT&T.

SBC Communications Inc. and AT&T announced an agreement for SBC to acquire AT&T, a combination that creates the nation’s premier communications company with unmatched global reach.

The transaction combines AT&T’s global systems capabilities, business and government customers, and fast-growing Internet protocol (IP)-based business with SBC’s extraordinary local exchange, broadband and wireless solutions. Both companies have common values focused on customer service, innovation and reliability.

The combined company will have robust, high-quality network assets, both in the United States and around the globe, and complementary expertise and capabilities. It will have the resources and skill sets to innovate and more quickly deliver to customers the next generation of advanced, integrated IP-based wireline and wireless communications services.

For SBC, the combination provides immediate global leadership in the enterprise segment where corporations and governments require complex communication solutions and services and access to advanced national and global networks.

“Today’s agreement is a huge step forward in our efforts to build a company that will lead an American communications revolution in the 21st century,” said Edward E. Whitacre Jr., SBC chairman and chief executive officer.

“We are combining AT&T’s national and global networks and expertise with SBC’s strong platforms and skills in local exchange service, wireless and broadband,” Whitacre said. “It’s a great combination.

“The communications industry is undergoing a profound transformation as it transitions to unified, IP-based networks capable of delivering a host of integrated services,” Whitacre said. “To manage this evolution, customers need a partner with the resources to provide new service platforms and product sets, while maintaining world-class reliability and security. This merger creates that company.

“We will have the intellectual and financial resources to spur innovation and propel America’s communications industry forward, harnessing IP technology to deliver exciting new services,” Whitacre said. “We will renew America’s leadership in communications technology, with products and services that set the standard for how businesses and individuals communicate. AT&T’s voice over IP platforms and other technological innovations will be leveraged to offer more choices and new services to consumers nationally across any network platform.”

“The combination of these two strong, complementary companies will ensure that together we will have all the capabilities necessary to compete successfully in serving a broad range of customers across the country and around the globe,” said David W. Dorman, AT&T chairman and chief executive officer. “Together, SBC and AT&T will be a stronger U.S.-based global competitor capable of delivering the advanced network technologies necessary to offer integrated, high-quality and competitively priced communications services to meet the evolving needs of customers worldwide.”