Pacific Bell
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| Pacific Bell Telephone Company | |
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| Type | Holding of AT&T |
|---|---|
| Founded | |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, CA, USA |
| Industry | Telecommunications |
| Products | POTS, DSL, U-Verse (FTTN) |
The Pacific Telephone & Telegraph Company was the name of the Bell System's telephone operations in California. It gained in size by acquiring smaller telephone companies along the Pacific coast, such as Sunset Telephone & Telegraph in 1917. Purchases extended Pacific Telephone's territory into Oregon, Washington, and northern Idaho; on July 1, 1961, however, those operations were split off to become Pacific Northwest Bell. Entering into the 1980s, Pacific Telephone had assets valued at $14.5 billion, making it the biggest of any of the 22 Bells AT&T wholly owned, which also made Pacific Telephone one of the "crown jewels" of the operating companies. However, Pacific Telephone was one of the least profitable Bells, due to very tough local telephone regulations in California.
Prior to the AT&T breakup in 1984, AT&T held 89.8% of Pacific Telephone. After the breakup, The Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company changed its name to Pacific Bell Telephone Company and was often referred to as PacBell.
[edit] Mergers
In 1997, Pacific Telesis Group was acquired by SBC Communications, and although the Pacific Telesis corporate name disappeared fairly quickly, SBC continued to operate the local telephone companies separately under their original names.
In September 2001, SBC rebranded the telephone company "SBC Pacific Bell". In late 2002, the companies were rebranded again as simply "SBC". Meanwhile, employees of SBC working in California who support SBC's non-regulated services and/or services provided both within and outside California were transferred to other SBC subsidiaries, like "Pacific Telesis Shared Services" and "SBC Operations, Inc." However, for legal and regulatory purposes, employees supporting local regulated services were still employed by "Pacific Bell Telephone Company dba SBC California ("SBC California")" which is the SBC subsidiary that provides regulated local telephone services within the franchise territory in California.
On November 18, 2005, SBC completed its acquisition of AT&T Corp. to form AT&T Inc. Pacific Bell is now known as Pacific Bell Telephone Company d/b/a AT&T California.
| Corporate Operations | |
|---|---|
| Holding Company: | American Telephone and Telegraph Company |
| Local Telephone Operations | |
| Bell Operating Companies: | Bell Telephone Company of Nevada | The Bell Telephone Company of Pennsylvania | The Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Company | The Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Company of Maryland | The Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Company of West Virginia | The Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Company of Virginia | Diamond State Telephone | Illinois Bell | Indiana Bell | Michigan Bell | Mountain Bell | New England Telephone & Telegraph | New Jersey Bell | New York Telephone | Northwestern Bell | Ohio Bell | Pacific Northwest Bell | Pacific Telephone | South Central Bell | Southern Bell | Southwestern Bell | Wisconsin Telephone |
| Franchisees: | Southern New England Telephone | Cincinnati Bell |
| Other AT&T Subsidiaries | |
| Manufacturing: | Western Electric |
| R&D Operations: | Bell Labs |
| Long Distance Services: | AT&T Long Lines |
| Wireless Services: | Advanced Mobile Phone Service |
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