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Bell Operating
Companies
Bell Companies that are part of AT&T, Inc. (2005-present):
*Note: AT&T Inc. is comprised of four of the
original "Baby Bells" that were spun-off from the original AT&T in 1984;
Ameritech, Bell South, Pacific Telesis, and Southwestern Bell (SBC). AT&T Inc.,
which was originally SBC, had acquired its former parent, AT&T Corp. in 2005,
and, renamed itself AT&T Inc. The original AT&T officially renamed itself AT&T
Corporation in 1990, and disused the American Telephone & Telegraph Company, six
years after divestiture.
Ameritech is the original 1984 AT&T divestiture name and logo given as the
holding company for the following Bells:
Though not a Bell Company, AT&T Corporation was purchased by one of its "Baby
Bell" offspring's in 2005; Southwestern Bell Corporation, which renamed itself SBC
Communications in 1995:
-
AT&T Alascom
-
AT&T Communications
-
AT&T Laboratories (R&D relating to voice technology,
software and network management)
-
AT&T Technologies (Spun-off in 1996 to become Lucent
Technologies; comprised of Network Systems Group, Microelectronics Group,
Consumer Products Group, Bell Laboratories.) AT&T Technologies was the new
name for Western Electric, which was changed in 1983 to prepare for the
divestiture.
*Note: Lucent technologies kept the portion of the
original AT&T Bell Laboratories that pertained to research and development of
telephone equipment, and other research dealing in networking equipment.
Also, AT&T Corp. still exists as subsidiary of AT&T
Inc., and provides business telecommunications services for businesses,
government, and the long distance network.
AT&T Corp. News Letters & Literature
AB-0062 Interview: Hossein Eslambolchi
AB-0154 Backgrounder: Where is Networking Taking Your
Business?
AB-0256 Point of View: Self-Managing Networks: Building
Infrastructure for Utility Computing
AB-0283 Networking Views: Keeping the Chaos at Bay
AT&T Business- Numbers Like These Are Hard to Beat
TFD99- Which one would you call first?
AT&T Business- The grass really is greener.
AT&T Business- Unlimited talk is good for small business.
Bell South is the original 1984 AT&T divestiture name and logo given as the
holding company for the following Bells:
Pacific Telesis is the original 1984 AT&T divestiture name and logo given as the
holding company for the following Bells:
Southwestern Bell Corporation is the original 1984 AT&T divestiture name and
logo given as the holding company for the following Bells:
We Offer Personalized One-On-One
Service!
Call Us Today at (651) 787-DIAL (3425)
AT&T Products & Services:
Small Business
Wireless, TV, Bundles, Internet and Voice
Enterprise Business
Wireless, TV, Bundles, Internet and Voice
AT&T Office@Hand
Flexible solution blends voice, video, IM, and conferencing—and makes them
function like one.
Global Business - Public Sector Solutions
Communications for large enterprise and government
FirstNet
FirstNet is an independent government authority
established in 2012 by Congress. FirstNet’s public
safety mission is to build and deploy the first-ever nationwide broadband
network dedicated to first responders.
What is FirstNet
Residential
Wireless, TV, Bundles, Internet and Voice
Wireless
Wireless service
DIRECTV
Whether you want a mind-blowing HD experience on your TV or you want to enjoy
your favorite shows on whatever screen you have handy, DIRECTV is the ultimate
source for everything you love in entertainment.
AT&T Store
Coreless & corded phones, accessories and small business phone equipment
AT&T
Tech Channel
The
AT&T Tech Channel is your source for originally-produced videos about the past,
present and future of the world of technology. From the depths of tech history
to the latest in Cyber Security, you'll find something to feed your inner geek
at the AT&T Tech Channel.
AT&T
Web Hosting Services
Web
Hosting Services, MDS and VDS Server Solutions, Mobile Website Hosting Services:
AT&T offers a variety of web hosting
solutions for you to choose the web hosting plan that fits your
specific needs.
Xandr
Inc.
With
one of the world’s largest collections of digital, film and TV properties, we
provide a premium option for advertisers and publishers looking to reach
specific audiences at scale in premium and brand-safe environments.
Warner Media
WarnerMedia is a powerful portfolio of iconic entertainment, news, and sports
brands. We bring people, technology, and the world’s best storytellers together
to drive culture and meaningful connection.
2009 AT&T Global IP Network Map:
Click on map to view larger image of the AT&T
Global IP Network Map.
2017 AT&T Subsidiaries:
Click on map to view larger image of the AT&T
Subsidiaries Chart.
Click on map to view larger image of the
changing face of AT&T (at&t)
Treasures of telephony tucked away in AT&T's Somerset County vault
The Star-Ledger,
July 01, 2012
Eliot Caroom/Reporter
In
a nondescript warehouse in Somerset County, AT&T stores its furniture, old
business records—and a treasure trove of telecommunications technology.
Deep inside the warehouse is a vault. Don’t light a match in the vault, or its
safety measures will suck oxygen from the narrow room in seconds to protect
its valuables.
What kind of valuables?
Well, for starters, there’s the notebook in which Alexander Graham Bell’s
assistant, Thomas A. Watson, recorded the first-ever telephone conversation on
March 10, 1876.
The words written in the ledger are famous, and George Kupczak, who manages
AT&T’s archives in New Jersey, knows them by heart. But Kupczak still seems to
vibrate with excitement as he gives them voice once again in the innermost
sanctum of the archives, the fluorescent-lit vault lined with tall metal
library shelves.
"Mr. Watson, come here, I want you," Kupczak read, his white-gloved hands
carefully cradling the small sheaf of papers.
"There you go," Kupczak said, his eyes darting with a thrill. "This is the
beginning."
The notebook in which Watson recorded Bell's
words.
Besides Watson’s notebook, AT&T’s warehouse in Warren
Township houses a remarkable assortment of working papers and prototypes from
the century of work in which company scientists earned Bell Labs the nickname
"The Idea Factory" and racked up at least seven Nobel prizes.
Researchers helped develop phones, stereo audio
recording, satellites, solar panels and transistors.
Sometimes the company lends items to museums: it agreed
to let the new September 11 Memorial & Museum borrow a dented AT&T pay phone
that fell from the 107th floor of Building 2 of the World Trade Center after
the terrorist attacks. Other pieces of history were lent to the Smithsonian
Institution.
Like the history of the company, phone-related
technology is the heart of the archives.
A heavy wooden phone switchboard from Meriden, Conn.,
used in 1878, looks like a mystery to be found on "Antiques Roadshow."
But this heirloom that illustrates the profoundly manual
origins of the phone is not for sale.
It defines the word "switchboard" — it is a heavy piece
of wood studded with metal knobs and metal switches that turn like the hands
of a clock to make contact with them.
"If a phone call came in, one of these flags would pop
out and the operator would know to connect the call," Kupczak said.
That heirloom dates to three years after Alexander
Graham Bell’s invention of the telephone in 1876.
Bell and his partners formed a company that licensed
telephone exchanges across the country and became known as the American Bell
Telephone Company. Its Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, created
years later, was renowned for innovation.
In the last few decades, though, the company and the
lab’s ownership have traced a tortured path of ups and downs.
AT&T, or American Telephone and Telegraph Company, was
born in 1885, and became the parent company of local parts of the Bell System.
The system functioned as a legal, regulated monopoly, through a series of
deals with the federal government.
Eventually, the government pushed for the system to be
broken up into separate companies, and in 1982, AT&T agreed. The company was
broken up into Baby Bells, subsidiaries around the country.
Bell Labs wound up run by Lucent, an AT&T offshoot,
which became Alcatel-Lucent after purchase by French firm Alcatel.
AT&T’s famous "Golden Boy" statue moved from its old
headquarters in New York to New Jersey, and then eventually to Dallas after
AT&T was bought by former subsidiary SBC Communications.
But AT&T’s cache of valuables from the company’s early
origins stayed intact, in New Jersey, and is by no means limited to telephony.
Aaron Houston/For The Star-LedgerAn
early AT&T ad showing
the solar panels and batteries invented
in Bell Labs.
"People think AT&T and they think telephones, that’s all
they think about," Kupczak said. "But AT&T was involved in all aspects of
popular culture."
The one invention that stands out from the rest is the
transistor, which won the Nobel Prize for Bell Labs employees in 1947.
The transistor is a cornerstone of modern electronics.
The devices are solid semiconductors that switch electronic signals, turn them
on and off and amplify them. They are essential to all modern electronic
devices.
Credit for the invention went to three men, Bell Lab’s
Walter Brattain, working with William Shockley and John Bardeen, who also
worked for the labs at the time.
Two of the three inventors moved on to new jobs around
the country, but evidence of their genius stayed in New Jersey—the notebook
entry when a working transistor design was first scrawled on paper on
Christmas Eve 1947.
The proof? Brattain’s notebook, just one more memento
stored in Kupczak’s quiet vault.
http://www.nj.com/business/index.ssf/2012/07/treasures_of_telephony_tucked.html
Name change as easy as
SBC
Bell label
jettisoned to unify company's identity for consumers
By Eliot Caroom/The Star-Ledger,
July 01, 2012
The Southwestern Bell brand
died Tuesday. It was 82.
It will be joined in the
afterlife by its sisters Pacific Bell, 122, and Ameritech, 9.
The phone companies will now
simply be SBC, letters that once stood for Southwestern Bell Corp. But no
longer.
San Antonio-based telecom
giant SBC Communications, which owns the three companies, said it's adopting a
national brand name across its 13-state local-phone operations to unify its
image. It's following the lead of other Baby Bells such as the former Bell
Atlantic, which is now Verizon Communications.
"It's the spreading of the
corporate DNA," said A. Michael Noll, a professor at the University of
Southern California's Annenberg School of Communications.
The change will strip the
historic "Bell" moniker from all but two members of the Bell family. Only
BellSouth and Cincinnati Bell use the term.
The company has planned the
change for three years. Phone bills were changed effective Tuesday, and many
of the company's buildings and trucks have sported the SBC name and logo for
some time, said spokesman Larry Solomon.
"The heritage will remain,"
Mr. Solomon said. "The legacy will remain. It's simply a new name."
With one exception:
Fulfilling a promise to state regulators, SBC's Connecticut operations will
continue to use the name SBC SNET, which previously stood for Southern New
England Telecommunications.
Mr. Solomon wouldn't say how
much the rebranding will cost. Customer awareness of the SBC name is already
high, particularly in California and the Midwest, where its acquisition and
integration of Pacific Bell and Ameritech have garnered significant media
coverage.
The Southwestern Bell brand
was adopted for AT&T's local operations in Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas
and Arkansas in April 1920. Seven years ago, Southwestern Bell Corp. changed
to SBC Communications.
The Pacific Bell name was
first used in 1880 and was discontinued in 1889, when the West Coast company
changed its name to Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Co. It was brought back in
1984 by Pacific Telesis, the Baby Bell that also owned Nevada Bell. In 1997,
SBC bought Pacific Telesis.
In the Midwest, five
separate brands – Illinois Bell, Indiana Bell, Michigan Bell, Ohio Bell and
Wisconsin Bell – prevailed until April 1993, when parent Ameritech imposed its
single brand. SBC bought Ameritech in 1999.
Even though some phone
company names have been around for decades, many have gone through several
rounds of changes, said Herb Hackenburg, executive director of the Telephone
History Group in Denver. American Telephone & Telegraph (1885), for example,
is now simply AT&T.
"There are a lot of
precedents for gobbling up telephone companies," he said. "Northwestern Bell
gobbled up over 400 telephone companies, including some relatively large
companies like Nebraska Bell."
In 1984, Northwestern Bell
became part of US West, which was bought by Qwest Communications International
in June 2000.
Name changes over the last
few years have been driven by companies' desire to establish national and
global identities. When Bell Atlantic and Irving-based GTE Corp. merged in
June 2000, they chose to craft an entirely new word – Verizon.
Until recently, SBC was
content with letting its acquired operations retain their own identities. But
it imposed the corporate image in September 2001 by forcing local brands to
add the SBC prefix to their names, ala SBC Southwestern Bell.
Experts say its latest move
is a logical extension as the company increasingly goes up against who else
but the Bell family matriarch, AT&T.
Changing the name will make
it easier for SBC to compete nationally with AT&T for business customers, said
Courtney Quinn, a senior analyst with the Yankee Group, a Boston consulting
firm.
The new name is also a way
to tell consumers the company doesn't sell only plain old telephone service.
"It's a much broader promise
of access and connectivity and control, to some degree, over your life," said
Julie Cottineau, managing director of naming for Interbrand, a consulting
firm.
"The burden is now on the
company's to imbue this empty vessel with meaning," Ms. Cottineau said.
What about the last keepers
of the "Bell" heritage? How long will they hold out?
"It's our position that the
name Cincinnati Bell has tremendous value," said spokeswoman Jenny Kues.
Said BellSouth spokesman
Jeff Battcher: "The company loves the Bell name. We have absolutely no plans
to change it."
E-mail
[email protected]
On October 22, 2016, AT&T announced its plans to acquire
Time Warner. We expect the transaction to close by end-of-year 2017.
- See more at:
http://about.att.com/newsroom/att_time_warner.html
https://investors.att.com/stockholder-services/time-warner-stockholders/at-and-t-merger
Dallas, TX and New York, NY – May 17, 2021. AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T)
and Discovery, Inc.
(NASDAQ: DISCA, DISCB, DISCK) today announced a definitive agreement to
combine
WarnerMedia’s premium entertainment, sports and news assets with Discovery's
leading
nonfiction and international entertainment and sports businesses to create a
premier,
standalone global entertainment company.
https://investors.att.com/~/media/Files/A/ATT-IR-V2/press-release/press-release-17052021.pdf
Dallas, TX – February 1, 2022. AT&T to Spin Off
Interest in WarnerMedia to Shareholders
AT&T to Spin Off Interest in WarnerMedia to its
Shareholders at Closing of Previously Announced Transaction with Discovery,
Inc.
https://about.att.com/story/2022/spin-off-interest-in-warnermedia.html
DALLAS, TEXAS and EL SEGUNDO, CALIF. – May 18, 2014 – AT&T
(NYSE:T) and DIRECTV (NASDAQ:DTV) today announced that they have entered into
a definitive agreement under which AT&T will acquire DIRECTV in a
stock-and-cash transaction for $95 per share based on AT&T’s Friday closing
price. The agreement has been approved unanimously by the Boards of Directors
of both companies. - See more at:
http://about.att.com/story/att_to_acquire_directv.html
https://investors.att.com/stockholder-services/cost-basis-guide/worksheet/directv
AT&T & TPG to Form New Entity to Operate AT&T’s U.S. Video
Unit
https://about.att.com/story/2021/video.html
DIRECTV to Own and Operate Former AT&T Video Operations
https://about.att.com/story/2021/att_directv.html
Note: AT&T was one of the first telecoms in the U.S.
to offer DirecTV back in the 1990's. Check out our DirecTV and AT&T Corp.
literature on this, which is from 1996-1997.
AT&T DirecTV Welcome Letter
DirecTV: Get With The Program
DirecTV: Get The Most From your TV
DirecTV: Television That's Out of This World
AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) and Deutsche Telekom AG (FWB: DTE) on 20 March 2011
announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which AT&T
will acquire T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom in a cash-and-stock transaction
currently valued at approximately $39 billion. The agreement has been approved
by the Boards of Directors of both companies.
AT&T to Acquire T-Mobile USA From Deutsche Telekom
http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=19358&cdvn=news&newsarticleid=31703
AT&T will hang up the phone on its embattled bid to take over T-Mobile USA for
$39 billion.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/12/att-pulls-out-of-t-mobile-acquisition-deal.html
Well, it looks like SBC has bought
its original parent company, AT&T, and changed its name to at&t (note the
lower-case initials) and has become, once again, the largest telecommunications
company in the USA. The combined SBC and AT&T Corp. is officially called AT&T
Inc.
The network meets the know-how.
Before, we were separate companies of equal stature and
complementary strengths. Now, we are united.(01)
Before, we were separate companies of equal stature and
complementary strengths. Now, we are united.(02)
Historically, mergers come with a winner and a loser.
This isn’t the last time we’ll rewrite history.(01)
Historically, mergers come with a winner and a loser.
This isn’t the last time we’ll rewrite history.(02)
Most mergers benefit somebody. Introducing the first to
benefit everybody.(01)
Most mergers benefit somebody. Introducing the first to
benefit everybody.(02)
America’s business network meets America’s wireless
network.
The leader in data meets the master of DSL.
Evolution of the SBC and AT&T Brands: A Pictorial
Timeline
Evolution of the New AT&T Brand
AT&T Collaborate Feature access codes
AT&T Voice DNA® feature (star) codes: Quick reference
guide
AT&T Use Star Services for quick account updates:
https://www.att.com/support/article/wireless/KM1051617/
AT&T Traditional Landline Star Codes and Calling
Features
SBC chief says deal preserves an
'icon'
Posted 1/31/2005 11:49 PM Updated 2/1/2005 2:52
AM
Click the
link to read the full article
..."It's the same kind of moxie that
Theodore Vail had in building the Bell System," he says, referring to Bell's
storied general manager in the early 1900s.
Clearly moved by the historic
importance of the transaction, Dorman had the official portraits of Vail and
Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, moved into AT&T's boardroom
for the final vote on the deal Sunday night.
"Those guys built this company,"
Dorman says, recounting the moment when the final board vote was taken to sell
AT&T to SBC.
"This is a historic company, one of
the most enduring and widely used by mankind, in terms of the telephone. I just
wanted them there."
The decorative façade of the former Texas Theatre still
remains and fronts the AT&T headquarters building.
The AT&T campus in
Bedminster, N.J.
The new AT&T logo greets employees and guests
entering the headquarters building at 175 E. Houston St.
in San Antonio.
Employees can test AT&T's latest technology in the
lobby area at the headquarters building.
Video screens in the lobby showcase AT&T's rich
history of meaningful innovation.
The AT&T Midwest headquarters building in
Hoffman Estates, Ill., was recently rebranded with the new logo.
The following photos were
contributed by Andy Kropidlowski, SBC Service Technician Orange/Riverside field
operations in Southern California. Thanks Andy for these photos!
Andy's existing service van photo (1993 DodgeRam
250)
SBC removed the last Pacific * Bell stickered vehicle in
the fleet at Anaheim and re-branded it .
Inside of Andy's existing service van photo (1993
DodgeRam 250)
New SBC "stickered" service tech van with ad on
it
SBC construction Splicer rig with pole placer
hook and giant auger drill bit
P*B Heavy duty Splicer tower truck
Vandalized pay phone Andy saw in the SBC
warehouse that
SBC asset protection recovered from the local state college
campus dorms. Looks like they used a giant crowbar or pry
bar to get into the coin box.
Map of Southwestern Bell territory in
1997. Click on image to get pdf version.
The following photos were contributed by Conrad
Otto, Engineering Manager from Southwestern Bell. Thank you Conrad for these
photos! You can read more on Conrad on our
"Bell System Employee Stories" section.
I spent most of my
career in St. Louis with a brief tour in Houston and a few years at the Bell
System Center for Technical Education in Lisle, Illinois. Attached are a few
photos of that facility, taken in 1970.
Darrell R. Powers sent this
photo to me of a payphone
booth showing the Bell logo next to the Ameritech logo.
It's
Official, AT&T received approval on December 29 to acquire Bell South. Both the
Cingular and Bell South name will be phased out in 2007. Click
HERE to read further about the momentous
event.
Unlike the other Baby Bells, BellSouth still uses
the familiar Bell System color stripes on their vans.
This is the
Baby Bell I'm most familiar with . . . BellSouth - (formerly Southern Bell and
South Central Bell).
In 1984, the Bell System's local
exchanges were divested from AT&T and organized into regional "Bell Operating
Companies" which are sometimes called, unofficially, "Baby Bells". BellSouth
is the last of the original "Baby Bells" still operating by itself, a
BellSouth spokesman said. BellSouth Corporation is an integrated
communications services company
headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia serving more than 41 million customers in
the United States and 16 other countries.
BellSouth, consistently recognized for
customer satisfaction, provides residential, business and wholesale
customers with integrated voice, video and data
services to meet their communications
needs. BellSouth is a Fortune 100 company with total revenues
exceeding $26 billion.
The following is a brief account
of corporate changes that took place in what is now called BellSouth:
1990 - 1991 - Prior to
12/31/1991, BellSouth Corporation consisted of two separate operating
companies:
-
South Central Bell
Telephone Company which serviced Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana,
Mississippi and Tennessee.
-
Southern Bell Telephone and
Telegraph Company which serviced Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and
South Carolina.
1992 - 1994 - On
1/1/1992, South Central Bell and Southern Bell were merged, forming
BellSouth Telecommunications, Inc., a corporation that is wholly-owned by
BellSouth Corporation.
1995 - BellSouth Telecommunications, Inc. had no changes during this
period, except that on 1/1/1995, the names South Central Bell and Southern
Bell were dropped and only BellSouth Telecommunications, Inc. was used.
1996 - 2005 - BellSouth Telecommunications, Inc. had no changes
during this period.
2006 - BellSouth announced on
March 5, 2006 that they have reached an agreement with the "new" AT&T
(formerly SBC) to merge within a year. The Cingular name will become AT&T
and BellSouth will be called AT&T.
BellSouth has
proudly kept the Bell name, logo and tradition! Click
HERE to view PDF.
(a GIF image is also available by
clicking
HERE.)
I wish I could say the same for
the rest of the former Bell System local operating companies! Yes, you might
have guessed by now that I'm a BellSouth customer. I have BellSouth for my
local phone service, cell phone service (Cingular), FastAccess ADSL Internet
service and long distance service. I've been a Southern Bell and BellSouth
customer since the 1970's so I think that makes me a loyal customer :-)
Did
you know that BellSouth in the metro Atlanta area has
THE LARGEST TOLL-FREE LOCAL CALLING AREA IN THE USA? No other Baby
Bell or ex-Baby Bell can say that. We have to put up with three area codes
and ten digit dialing though - a sharp contrast to the days when I was in
college and could call long distance from Orlando, Florida to Miami, Florida
(about 250 miles or 400 Kilometers) by only dialing a "1" and the seven digit
number!!! Now I can't call my neighbor across the street without dialing ten
digits!
The BellSouth building in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
I live about 25 miles north of Atlanta.
I took this picture while sitting at a red
light but some truck was blocking part of the lower section of the building.
Click on image to show full-size view.
BellSouth facility near me in Kennesaw, Georgia,
USA.
Click on image to show full-size view.
BellSouth building (formerly the South Central
Bell headquarters)
in Birmingham, Alabama, USA.
Photo courtesy of Eric Paschal.
Click on image to show full-size view.
BellSouth has carried on the tradition of
the Bell System's involvement with the community as seen in the photographs
below that I took at Zoo Atlanta near where I live:
The Panda exhibit is probably the most popular
exhibit at the zoo in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
Here is a photo of my youngest daughter posing
behind one of the many BellSouth sponsored props. I wish I kept a copy of the
old phone book shown with the pandas on the front cover!
A
special thank you to
Durwood Hunter
for sharing two photos and his story of his time with BellSouth.
"We delivered telephone supplies to work
centers across North and Central Florida from the BellSouth Services Warehouse
(formally Western Electric). All of the drivers were BellSouth employees from
all kinds of jobs. We were trained to drive by BellSouth. We drove at night and
also delivered cable on the day shift. At the time it was kept quiet that we
also picked up Pay Station money on the return to Jacksonville.
The job lasted two years and returned to contract drivers. A few years later the
warehouse closed and BellSouth Services was history."
Durwood Hunter Driver BellSouth Services
Jacksonville Fl. Twenty years
with Bell and this was the best job I had!
Logo for the transportation department.
$1,000 bond from Southern Bell dated 1939.
(Southern Bell is now BellSouth).
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