this article is about the defunct wireless provider . for the wireless subsidiary of at & t see at & t mobility . new cingular wireless services formerly called at & t wireless services type private subsidiary of at & t mobility industry wireless telecommunications fate defunct founded 1987 ; 29 years ago 1987 as mccaw cellular communications headquarters redmond washington u.s. key people john d. zeglis products gophone parent craig mccaw 1987 1994 at & t corp. 1994 2001 cingular at & t mobility 2004 present website www.wireless.att.com at & t wireless services founded in 1987 as mccaw cellular communications and now legally known as new cingular wireless services formerly part of at & t corp. is a wireless telephone carrier in the united states based in redmond washington and later traded on the new york stock exchange under the stock symbol awe as a separate entity from its former parent . on october 26 2004 at & t wireless was acquired by cingular wireless a joint venture of sbc communications and bellsouth to form the largest wireless carrier in the united states at the time . on november 16 2004 at & t wireless stores were rechristened under the cingular banner . the legal entity at & t wireless services inc. was renamed new cingular wireless services inc. 1 in late 2005 sbc the majority partner in cingular acquired the original at & t and rebranded as the new at & t . cingular became wholly owned by the new at & t in december 2006 as a result of the new at & t s acquisition of bellsouth . after the merger cingular was renamed at & t mobility in early 2007 and remained the largest wireless carrier until 2009 when verizon wireless acquired alltel to become the largest wireless service provider by number of subscribers . contents 1 history 1.1 mccaw cellular 1.2 cellular one 1.3 purchase by at & t corp. 1.4 spinoff 2 acquisition by cingular 3 partnerships 4 at & t brand returns to wireless 5 references 6 bibliography 6.1 further reading 7 external links history edit mccaw cellular edit mccaw cellular logo at & t wireless began in 1987 as mccaw cellular communications a cellular telephone pioneer in the united states . savvy licensing of cellular spectrum in the early 1980s put mccaw cellular in an extremely strong position quickly outpacing the growth of the baby bells in the emerging market . the company purchased mci communications s mobile businesses in 1986 followed by lin broadcasting in 1989 giving them widespread access in all of the major us markets . partnering with at & t as a technology provider mccaw introduced their cellular one service in 1990 the first truly national cellular system . at & t purchased 33 % of the company in 1992 and arranged a merger in 1994 that made craig mccaw one of at & t s largest shareholders . in 2002 the company was spun off from at & t to become at & t wireless services . in 1966 j. elroy mccaw sold one of his cable television holdings in centralia washington to his three sons including craig who was 16 years old at the time . craig took an increasingly central role in the development of mccaw communications and by the early 1980s had grown the company from 2 000 subscribers to about 5 million in annual revenue . 2 in 1981 mccaw came across an at & t document about the future of cellular telephony which predicted that by the start of the 21st century there would be 900 000 cellular subscribers in the united states . intrigued mccaw found that the licenses for cellular spectrum were being sold at 4.50 per pop meaning he could build a base for future subscribers for very low cost . by 1983 mccaw communications had purchased licenses in six of the 30 largest us markets . mccaw then succeeded in using the licenses and collateral based on the at & t projections using that collateral to take out loans and buy more licenses and eventually buying billions of dollars of spectrum . in 1987 he sold the cable business for 755 million and used this new capital to buy even more cellular licenses . 2 it was around this time that the first wave of analog cellular telephones were starting to enter the consumer conscience . the baby bells started the process of buying their own licenses only to find that mccaw owned enough of most of the major markets to lock them out unless they purchased spare licenses from him at a huge profit . his network of licenses in the major markets was used as a lever to buy sell or trade licenses in other markets that were not considered profitable at a considerable discount . in 1986 the company purchased mci s wireless operations cellular and paging for 122 million and changed their name to mccaw cellular communications . 3 in 1989 the company outbid bellsouth for control of lin broadcasting which owned licenses in houston dallas los angeles and new york paying 3.5 billion a price that represented 350 per license . 2 cellular one edit at this point mccaw s focus turned from dealing licenses to servicing the network signing up customers in what was now a maturing technology on the cusp of explosive growth . in order to handle the customer side of the business mccaw turned to at & t for technology . in 1990 mccaw cellular introduced ss7 signaling across their network . prior to this each cell tower in the network connected to local signaling billing and sets of land lines . since only the towers in the area local to the customer s home had access to dialing and routing information when they traveled to another area calls could not reach them . with the introduction of ss7 signaling the dialing and routing information could now be switched across the entire network known technically as non facility associated signalling tying it together into a single national network . they called the new system cellular one and introduced the concept of roaming charges . that year mccaw earned 54 million making him america s highest paid chief executive . 3 the partnership grew in november 1992 when at & t purchased 1 3 of the company for 3.8 billion . at the time the company was generating 1.75 billion in annual revenue and had two million cellular one subscribers far more customers than at & t s earlier projections for all cellular use in the us at a point almost ten years earlier . 2 purchase by at & t corp. edit in 1994 the merger of the two companies was completed when at & t purchased the rest of mccaw cellular for 11.5 billion at that time the second largest merger in us history second only to the rjr nabisco takeover documented in barbarians at the gate . 2 the merger was completed in late 1994 creating at & t wireless group which was at that time the largest cellular carrier in the us . at & t kick started their cellular division with 2 million subscribers . 4 5 as a result of the merger craig mccaw became one of at & t s largest shareholders but he refused to sit on the board of directors because he couldn t stand long meetings . 3 mccaw left daily operations to focus on teledesic passing control of at & t wireless to james barksdale and then steve hooper when barksdale left for netscape . hooper a long time mccaw cellular executive was tapped by at & t to be the ceo of the newly acquired division . under his direction at & t wireless grew to be the nation s largest cellular provider by the end of 1997 at which point hooper and many of the remaining mccaw era executives departed . by 1999 and 2000 the cellular industry began to consolidate and verizon wireless and cingular wireless became the first and second largest national carriers . the year 1999 also brought john d. zeglis as chief executive in october followed a few months later by dan hesse s departure who had been head of the division since 1997 . over the next year and a half all six mccaw regional presidents left the declining company . spinoff edit at & t wireless services logo in april 2000 at & t wireless became a separately traded entity with the world s largest initial public offering at that time . just over a year later in july 2001 at & t wireless became a separate company rather than a division of at & t corp. in 2003 at & t wireless was granted several mobile licenses for caribbean countries including barbados grenada saint lucia and saint vincent and the grenadines . 6 at & t wireless decline climaxed in 2003 with the fcc mandating the allowance of porting numbers to other carriers . at & t wireless experienced a mass exodus of many customers who were fed up with years of degrading service and poor coverage . by the end of 2003 at & t wireless faced a public relations nightmare when a new system for adding subscribers and porting numbers in out was implemented and botched . realizing that it faced an impossible situation at & t wireless services inc began accepting bids in early 2004 to be acquired . as of january 1 2004 the largest single shareholder of at & t wireless was japan s ntt docomo which was one of the first to place a bid to buy the company . in the middle of 2004 much of the caribbean operations and bermuda were agreed to be sold to digicel group . acquisition by cingular edit on february 13 2004 at & t wireless accepted bids for acquisition of the wireless company . the two top bidders were british carrier vodafone and american competitor cingular . cingular was owned by two baby bells ; 40 % by bellsouth and 60 % by sbc communications . vodafone owned 45 % of verizon wireless and had it succeeded in the bid their share of verizon wireless would then have been sold to parent company verizon communications . cingular emerged victorious february 17 by agreeing to pay more than 41 billion more than twice the company s recent trading value to acquire at & t wireless . some analysts have said that although vodafone the world s largest mobile operator was unsuccessful in acquiring the company it was nonetheless successful in forcing a competitor to overpay for the acquisition of at & t wireless . the sale received us government approval and closed on october 26 . companies that originally comprised cingular from its inception such as bellsouth mobility were absorbed into the at & t wireless services corporate structure . the at & t wireless brand was retired by cingular on april 26 2005 six months after the close of the merger . this was per a pre spin off agreement with at & t corp. that stated that if at & t wireless was to be bought by a competitor the rights to the name at & t wireless and the use of the at & t name in wireless phone service would revert to at & t corp. at & t wireless prepaid services go phone was adopted by cingular wireless after the merger closed and is still in use today by the current at & t mobility . partnerships edit rogers at & t wireless was a publicly traded partnership between rogers and at & t. it operated a mobile network in canada until rogers bought out at & t s stake in 2004 and took the company private . see rogers wireless . suncom wireless was a brand name used by three