Cingular to Switch Back to AT&T

USA Today reports that Cingular will be returning to the AT&T Brand Name in a ploy to omit its partnership with BellSouth, or at least thats my opinion of it.  But spokesman for BellSouth claims that this will not be an issue nor is it resisting the change.

In an interview with USA TODAY on Friday, Whitacre left no doubt about his plans. Asked if the company planned to drop the Cingular name in favor of the AT&T brand, Whitacre said, "Yes, we do."

Whitacre said AT&T might still use the Cingular name in some markets. But the overall plan, he said, is to use the AT&T name to market all the company's products — local, long-distance, wireless, data and video.

Now I can see how they would like to incorporate everything under one umbrella using the AT&T name; voice, data, local and long distance, wireless.  Makes complete sense, but why did they not consider this in the beginning?