What is AT&T called now?
Although AT&T is still known as AT&T today, it is not the same as the previous AT&T business having changed its name multiple times.
The Origins of AT&T
The company started with the evolution of the telephone itself; AT&T was formed in 1876; Alexander Graham Bell established the Bell Telephone Company in 1877. Bell Telephone later on over many decades acquired other smaller regional phone companies and renamed them American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T) in 1899.
Up until the 1980s, AT&T had provided phone service in the United States under constitutional protection as a monopoly. Often known as "Ma Bell," AT&T under an anti-trust case dominated the telephone services sector to the degree of 80–90% before its 1984 split.
The division of the Bell system
To separate the Bell System into many independent companies therefore promoting competition, AT&T explicitly signed the divestiture agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice in 1982. The first of January 1984 marked the beginning of the efficient application of this agreement. The split included the following changes:
- AT&T Corp: Along with maintaining the name AT&T, this new company, AT&T Corp., produced equipment and offered long-distance phone service.
- Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs): Local phone companies like New England Telephone and Pacific Bell were known as regional Bell operating companies (RBOCs). Their attention now moved to what was referred to as local phone service.
- Bell Labs and Bellcore: AT&T sold its research and development divisions into separate companies Bell Labs and Bellcore.
After the Breakup
Regarding the phone sector, trends in mergers and acquisitions in the 1990s and 2000s were clear-cut. Important events included:
- The biggest long-distance phone company, AT&T, bought TCI, a cable television business, in 1994 and changed its name to AT&T.
- Of the RBOCs, one, Southwestern Bell bought AT&T Corp. in 2005 and adopted the AT&T moniker.
- Later years saw several of the other former RBOCs, like Pacific Bell and New England Telephone, combine under the Verizon banner.
Thus, 30 years after the breakup, AT&T Internet and the main components of the original AT&T monopoly have been put back together.
AT&T Today
Though it is not quite the old AT&T phone monopoly people used to know, today's AT&T is still AT&T. Mostly thanks to the purchase of the former AT&T Corp. by Southwestern Bell Telephone Corporation, present AT&T Inc. has its roots in Important features of the new AT&T consist in:
- Southwestern Bell was still based in Dallas, Texas as was SBC Communications.
- Grown from being a local and long-distance telephone provider to a conglomerate telecommunications company
- Today’s key services include wireless service, broadband Internet, and digital entertainment, including HBO and Warner Bros.
- It is still among the leading telecommunications companies globally based on the revenue generated.
Therefore, in 1984, the Bell System was broken up and the old AT&T monopoly was split into several new companies. However, in the last few decades, mergers have returned most telephone service under familiar AT&T brand we are familiar with today. It functions in a very different way now as a less regulated, multi-faceted technology and media company. But at the end of the day, the AT&T name endures today as it did more than 140 years ago.
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