We've said it before: 2004 has been a tough year for old AT&T. The company discontinued local and long-distance services in several states, said it would stop marketing residential long-distance altogether, got bumped from the Dow Jones Industrial Average and became embroiled in a very public spat with AT&T Wireless over the value of its brand while the wireless firm's acquisition by Cingular Wireless was still pending. And in a way, 2004 was the latest in a string of years during which AT&T seemed to be changing radically — and not always for the better. It sold or spun off its broadband, wireless and hosting businesses, leaving not all that much besides a long-distance voice business being aggressively challenged by local exchange carriers. Yet, during the same period of time, AT&T began pursuing an IP evolution that seems to have switched into a whole new gear recently. When AT&T launched voice-over-IP service early this year, it seemed almost like a “me-too” play, but after winning a $1 billion IP virtual private network deal from the U.S Dept. of the Treasury last week, as well as a $174 million contract to deploy an international IP VPN for Siemens, there may be more to AT&T's radical makeover than there once appeared to be. The company's IP capabilities are now on display, and apparently bringing in new business, while the IP evolutions of some of the telecom industry's other firms are only just beginning. Maybe this isn't an old company dying. Maybe it's a new company being born.