Ever since the news that AT&T wants to buy BellSouth for $67 billion in stock hit the wires I’ve been trying to get my head around the ramifications of this move. It was just a few days ago that I noticed that my bill for my home landline phone from SBC was now coming from AT&T (wasn’t it SBC that bought AT&T, not the other way around?!), but AT&T is still an incredibly strong brand even considering it’s recent history so this name change makes some amount of sense. I expect a similar name change to show up on my cell phone bill, which not that long ago came from AT&T Wireless, and then became Cingular, but the pending acquisition of BellSouth will give AT&T total ownership of Cingular. And I never really liked that name anyway.

There’s plenty to think about with regards to this deal, including the 10,000 workers AT&T says it will lay off when it goes through and the obvious reassembling of the AT&T monopoly that was taken apart by the Justice Department in 1982. But rather than think too hard about it right now, I’ll point you to Jeff Pulver’s lyrical take on the deal, done in fine Dr. Seuss-style:

Ma Bell,
Break Bell,
Four Bells,
Remake Bell.
…

If that’s too light for you (it’s really not that light, Jeff packs some heavy stuff into his Seussian rhyme), here’s another point to consider. Cynthia Brumfield over on IP Democracy notes that Congress is already talking tough about whether to let this acquisition happen, but if it does go through one of the outcomes could be a renewed interest in working some network neutrality language into the rewrite of the Telecom Act.