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The new AT&T works fast. Less than two weeks after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) finally approved its $85 billion merger with BellSouth, AT&T is all set to start phasing out the six-year old Cingular Wireless brand.

On Martin Luther King Day, the telecommunications giant will launch a campaign to transition Cingular to AT&T.

To start, the merged company will display a prominent graphic featuring both the AT&T and Cingular logos in a multimedia assault that’ll take place in advertising and customer communications, across Web sites, retail stores, and on company buildings and vehicles.

Each transitional element will feature the two logos coming together, with goal of creating an association between Cingular and AT&T in people's minds.

Eventually, the AT&T logo will take over completely. And yet, while the Cingular brand will be phased out, the color orange will continue be associated with AT&T's wireless services.

Throughout 2007, Cingular's 2,000 nationwide stores and kiosks will be transitioned to AT&T-branded signage. In addition, the company's approximately 15,000 in-store personnel will start wearing AT&T-branded clothing.

By moving AT&T, Cingular and Bell South under a single brand, the company estimates 20 percent of the operating expense savings due to the merger will come from advertising.


                 AT&T phasing out Cingular logo, brand.

"Around the world, our customers recognize the AT&T brand for meaningful innovation, a commitment to customer service, high quality and exceptional reliability," said AT&T chairman & CEO Edward E. Whitacre Jr."AT&T, BellSouth, and Cingular are now one company, and going to market with our services under one brand is the right thing to do."

Ironically, Cingular killed off the AT&T Wireless brand when it bought that independent company - it had been spun off by the old AT&T - in 2004 for $41 billion dollars. That merger vaulted Cingular ahead of then mobile operator leader Verizon Wireless. It now has approximately 58 million subscribers.

The current incarnation of AT&T is the result of SBC, a part-owner of Cingular, purchasing the original AT&T and taking the company's name for its landline services. By merging with BellSouth, the new AT&T bought Cingular's other owner.

As a side note, a large part of the hoopla surrounding the launch of Apple's long-awaited iPhone this week was Cingular's involvement as the exclusive carrier for the cellphone/media player/Internet device in the U.S. Both the Cingular and AT&T logos were prominently displayed at the launch.

It'll be interesting to see if the transition to AT&T branding has any effect on how the iPhone is received and launched, and whether there will be any confusion when the handset finally ships.

While the fact that Steve Jobs and company introduced the iPhone six months before it is supposed to ship should give the companies plenty of time to link the iPhone to AT&T, having the transition to the AT&T brand announced before or simultaneously with Apple's iPhone announcement would have made more sense.

Either way, it will be a while before anyone gets the iPhone in their hands. In the meantime, Cingular offers what is perhaps the largest swath of smartphones and cellular-wireless handhelds in the United States. Over the last few months, for example, the carrier added the Nokia E62, Palm Treo 680, Samsung BlackJack, HTC-built 3125 and 8525, HP iPAQ hw6920, the RIM BlackBerry Pearl, and - most recently - the Treo 750 to its lineup.

The carrier's 3G wireless network (for Web access, e-mail, MMS, music, video, etc.), which it has been rolling out over the past year, is among the country's fastest high-speed data offerings. Unlike Sprint and Verizon's EV-DO networks, Cingular - a GSM carrier - leverages HTMS/HSPDA technology.

Cingular is also far ahead of fellow GSM carrier T-Mobile, the fourth largest operator in the U.S. It wasn't until October 2006 that T-Mobile announced it would start rolling out its 3G network - after turning out to be the big winner in the FCC's recent spectrum auction, paying $4.2 billion for 120 licenses. T-Mobile said country-wide rollout won't be completed until next year.