{"id":95,"date":"2008-04-16T05:32:35","date_gmt":"2008-04-16T13:32:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/?p=95"},"modified":"2013-06-14T21:44:32","modified_gmt":"2013-06-15T05:44:32","slug":"mr-watson-go-there-they-want-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/?p=95","title":{"rendered":"Mr. Watson!  Go there!  They want you!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>While I was apparently distracted by shiny objects, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.verizon.com\/\">Verizon Communications, Inc.<\/a>, spun-off its landline operations in Maine, New Hamsphire, and Vermont as <span style=\"font-style: italic ;\">Northern New England <u>Spin<\/u>co Inc.<\/span>, which was on the same day merged with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fairpoint.com\/\">FairPoint Communications<\/a>, a firm previously noted for holding various small, rural local telephone operating companies.<\/p> <p>I have received a tiny amount of stock, and a tiny check in lieu of a fractional share.  They have suggested that I might sell them the shares.  Previously, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.verizon.com\/\">Verizon<\/a> spun-off <a href=\"http:\/\/www.idearc.com\/\">Idearc Media Corp.<\/a>, and likewise sent a small check and a tiny number of shares.  They actively encouraged me to sell-back the shares, but I decided to be difficult.  I don't plan to sell-back the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fairpoint.com\/\">FairPoint<\/a> shares either.<\/p> <p>It is interesting to see <a href=\"http:\/\/www.verizon.com\/\">Verizon<\/a>, which once aggressively absorbed other telephone companies, now spinning-off its landline operations in three states.  When <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sbc.com\/\">SBC Communications<\/a> bought the remains of <abbr title=\"American Telephone and Telegraph Company\">AT&amp;T<\/abbr>, and then took the name <q>AT&amp;T<\/q> for itself, the media and others cre&auml;ted the impression that the original <abbr title=\"American Telephone and Telegraph Company\">AT&amp;T<\/abbr>, broken apart in the '80s, had been re&auml;ssembled. (<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/AT%26T\">The Wikipedia article on the new AT&amp;T<\/a> uses <a href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20090530071412\/http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/4\/48\/Newatt.png\">a diagram designed as if to foster this misimpression<\/a>.) In fact, some of the original <abbr title=\"Regional Bell Operation Company\">RBOC<\/abbr>s were not absorbed by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sbc.com\/\">SBC \/ AT&amp;T<\/a>, being instead held by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.verizon.com\/\">Verizon<\/a> and by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.qwest.com\/\">Qwest Communications International, Inc.<\/a>  And now this consolidation into three parts has become a division into four parts.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While I was apparently distracted by shiny objects, Verizon Communications, Inc., spun-off its landline operations in Maine, New Hamsphire, and Vermont as Northern New England Spinco Inc., which was on the same day merged with FairPoint Communications, a firm previously noted for holding various small, rural local telephone operating companies. I have received a tiny [&hellip;]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,36,5,4],"tags":[58],"class_list":["post-95","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-disturbing-the-peace","category-economics","category-personal","category-public","tag-telephony"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=95"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=95"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=95"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=95"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}