AT&T Inc.

The origins of the original AT&T company date back to 1877 and the formations of the Bell Telephone Company. In 1899 the Bell Telephone Company was transferred to AT&T, which until then had been one of its subsidiaries.

The AT&T Corporation for many decades held a de facto monopoly on telecommunication in the US. On January 1, 1984 AT&T was dismantled into seven regional telecommunications companies: Ameritech, Bell Atlantic, Bellsouth, Nynex, Pacific Telesis, Southwestern Bell and US West.

Today’s AT&T is the result of a merger of one these companies and its former parent company AT&T. Following the merger of SBC Communications Inc., (SBC) with AT&T Corporations on November 18, 2005, SBC changed its name from SBC Communications Inc to AT&T Inc.

In March 2006, AT&T acquired BellSouth, the third most important local telephone operator in the United States.

Between 1997 and 2005 all the seven companies consolidated into four companies: Verizon, AT&T Inc., BellSouth and Qwest. The approval by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) of AT&T Inc.’s acquisition of BellSouth in 2006 reduced the four to three.
AT&T Inc.