In the early 1990′s, AT&T knew the world of communications was changing rapidly … the consumer internet was still virtually all dialup but the future was so bright, we all had to wear shades … so they create a series of ads highlighting wireless and wired connectivity possibilities …

Keep in mind, the 1993 AT&T is NOT the AT&T you know today. After the breakup of “Ma Bell” into the early 1980′s in the “regional bells (such as SBC – then Southwestern Bell),” and AT&T. AT&T was mostly a long distance phone carrier. Lucent was not spun off yet and they were in the process of buying McCaw’s cellular business which later became Cingular. They had begun talks to acquire or partner up with a cable company but nothing happened until 1999 when they bought TCI. And to close to loop, a few years ago, SBC after buying up 10 of the other regional bells bought AT&T and renamed itself AT&T … but in 1993, AT&T was just another long distance phone carrier like Sprint or MCI – sure, it had a century old name but it was a tiny shell of what was once the only phone company in America … so it was dreaming big …

Basically, everything has come true (of course, most scifi writers already covered these) but AT&T could bring these back and basically say,

YOU WILL … ON AN IPHONE …

In the first spot, you’ll see the fabled AT&T EO Communication device … er, a smaller Kindle … just kidding …

Touchscreen, GPS & wireless faxing …

While you can’t directly send a wireless fax via the iPhone, you certainly can send it via Safari and an internet fax service …

Home monitoring & access, wrist phone

Of course, an earpiece is just as good as a wrist phone since a 3″ iPhone screen is so much nicer than a .75″ wrist screen …

online renewal, video collaboration, & online personal ass’t

While you can’t really renew your license online (is the DMV still running Win 3.1?) but since you can bank online, buy insurance, book plane reservations and pretty much search and buy a house online – close enough. Of course, you can really do video collaboration online with an iPhone but uyou can collaborate online plus you can find an online assistant (or from the video), pretty much an RSS feed – easy for an iPhone … plus Traylor Howard from 1995 in the ad … Still as cute …

Voice Access & Medical History

The Voice Access is of course, more of a home automation feature but having access to 25 fart apps is pretty much the same … and other than the privacy thing and the ease of losing it – that would be an easy add-on … or the medical access is pretty much the same equivalent.

Of course, all of these features are available on the internet and other devices but this is AT&T … and YOU WILL In 2009 on an iPhone