[VoiceOps] Carriers Keeping Acquired Defunct Company Names

[Alex Balashov]

Yeah, that’s right. The amount of stuff tied to the legacy companies’ identifiers, OCNs, namesakes and so forth is stupefying. It is completely impractical to change at all.

—
Sent from mobile, with due apologies for brevity and errors.

> On Oct 23, 2021, at 6:52 PM, Jeff Shultz <jeffshultz at sctcweb.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> I'd bet that taxes and business licences enter into it. For some of those companies there is a lot of paper that goes back a lot of years in various federal, state, and local file cabinets. It's sometimes easier to simply use the old names that already have a legal existence in an area than try to change the names on all of that paperwork and maps.... 
> 
> That would be my guess. That and maybe intellectual property, keeping trademarks and names alive so that someone else can't pop up using it. 
> 
>> On Sat, Oct 23, 2021 at 3:32 PM Peter Beckman <beckman at angryox.com> wrote:
>> I'm curious why companies like T-Mobile and Inteliquent/Onvoy/Voyant
>> continue to retain company names and corporate entities long after their
>> brands have been retired, acquired, and generally shell entities holding
>> phone numbers.
>> 
>> Some examples:
>> 
>>      T-Mobile    -> Omnipoint, Aerial Communications, Suncom, Powertel,
>>                     Sprint, Eliska Wireless Ventures Subsidiary I
>>      Sprint      -> O1 Communications, US Telepacific
>>      AT&T        -> New Cingular Wireless, Southwestern Bell, Pacific Bell,
>>                     Bell South, Southern Bell, Ameritech
>>      Verizon     -> Cellco Partnership, Bell Atlantic Nynex Mobile
>>      Inteliquent -> Radiant IQ, Onvoy, Voyant, Broadvox, Layered, Neutral
>>                     Tandem
>>      CenturyLink -> United Telephone, Qwest
>>      Spectrum    -> Charter Fiberlink
>> 
>> So many of these brands are dead and acquired, yet these companies live on
>> and own phone numbers. Cingular died in 2006. Radiant IQ acquired in 2015.
>> Bell Atlantic went away in 2000 with Verizon acquiring Bell Atlantic and
>> GTE.
>> 
>> Why? What benefit does this provide the owning/operating companies? Legal
>> insulation?
>> 
>> Beckman
>> 
>> PS -- This all started when I saw Inteliquent request VoIP Numbering for
>> Radiant IQ in June 2020, a company they acquired in 2015, and generally
>> does not exist in any meaningful way to customers or consumers, residential
>> or business. This industry in the US is weird.
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Peter Beckman                                                  Internet Guy
>> beckman at angryox.com                                https://www.angryox.com/
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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> 
> 
> -- 
> Jeff Shultz
> 
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