AT&T

Last edited by Tonya Hennessey on August 15, 2008 - 10:35pm

Technology & Telecommunications

Company Snapshot:

AT&T is a telecommunications and networking provider that operates in 60 countries and 850 cities worldwide. The company is divided into AT&T Business Services and AT&T Consumer Services.

In 2005 SBC bought AT&T Corp., creating the largest telecommunications company in the U.S. Then SBC took on the name AT&T. In 2006 AT&T purchased BellSouth for $86 billion in the largest telecommunications takeover in U.S. history. AT&T now services more than 68 million phone lines. Cingular Wireless changed into AT&T Mobility which is under AT&T and is the country's largest wireless carrier.

Services delivered include long distance, international, toll-free and local voice, including wholesale transport services, as well as data services and Internet protocol services, dial-up Internet services, management of network servers and applications, prepaid cards and operator-assisted calls.

Ownership status:

Publicly traded

Number of employees worldwide:

303,670

Chief executive officer:

Randall L. Stephenson

2008 Global Fortune 500 rank:

Website:

http://www.att.com/

Corporate accountability

Anti-competitive and consumer protection:

In 2006, the Electronic Frontier Foundation lodged a class action lawsuit, Hepting v. AT&T, which alleged that AT&T had allowed agents of the National Security Agency (NSA) to monitor phone and Internet communications of AT&T customers without warrants. If true, this would violate the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 and the First and Fourth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. AT&T has yet to confirm or deny that monitoring by the NSA is occurring. In April 2006, a retired former AT&T technician, Mark Klein, lodged an affidavit supporting this allegation. The Department of Justice has stated they will intervene in this lawsuit by means of State Secrets Privilege.

In May 2006, USA Today reported that all international and domestic calling records had been handed over to the National Security Agency by AT&T, Verizon, SBC, and BellSouth for the purpose of creating a massive calling database. The portions of the new AT&T that had been part of SBC Communications before November 18, 2005 were not mentioned.

On June 21, 2006, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that AT&T had rewritten rules on their privacy policy. The policy, which took effect June 23, 2006, says that "AT&T — not customers — owns customers' confidential info and can use it 'to protect its legitimate business interests, safeguard others, or respond to legal process.' "

On August 22, 2007, National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell confirmed that AT&T was one of the telecommunications companies that assisted with the government's warrantless wire-tapping program on calls between foreign and domestic sources.

On November 8, 2007, Mark Klein, a former AT&T technician, told Keith Olbermann of MSNBC that all Internet traffic passing over AT&T lines was copied into a locked room at the company's San Francisco office — to which only employees with National Security Agency clearance had access. For more information, see also AT&T Whistleblower to Urge Senate to Reject Blanket Immunity for Telecoms.