A generation after the phone company was broken up, AT&T looks like it’s getting back together again. AT&T has offered $67 billion to buy BellSouth Corporation, reports the New York Times.

State and federal regulators will scrutinize the deal but in the last decade no merger deal has been tossed out, so it would be a shock if this one were. And given the variety of telecommunications services that were barely on the horizon in the 1980s, there is plenty of competition even if it’s not a variety of companies offering the same product. And the new company is also working on competing with cable and satellite television.

CEO Ed Whitacre, who is a veteran of the original phone company, says that bundling the phone companies is necessary with the onslaught of cable and Internet competitors, as well as the boom in content-based businesses for cell phones.

“The empire-building continues,” one analyst tells the paper. “(Whitacre) has a track record of gobbling competitors at premium prices.”