Regional Bell operating company

The Regional Bell operating companies (RBOC) are the result of the United States antitrust action against AT&T in 1983. The resulting Baby Bells were originally:

• Ameritech
• Bell Atlantic
• BellSouth[?]
• NYNEX[?]
• Pacific Bell[?]
• Southwestern Bell[?]
• US WEST[?]

These companies have since merged, leaving only 4 regional telephone companies in the United States. In 1998, Southwestern Bell changed its name to SBC Communications[?] and acquired Pacific Bell and Ameritech. In 1997, NYNEX was acquired by Bell Atlantic, which later, in 2000, merged with GTE to form Verizon. In 2000, US WEST was merged into Qwest, a fiber optic company. BellSouth is the only RBOC that remains as originally conceived, and is the only company that still carries the "Bell" name. BellSouth still uses the last Bell logo, designed in 1969.

See also : Competitive local exchange carriers[?] (CLECs).

External links

• Table of RBOC changes (http://www.bellsystemmemorial.com/table_of_changes.html)
• BellSouth Corp. (http://www.bellsouth.com/)
• Qwest Communications (http://www.qwest.com/)
• SBC Communications (http://www.sbc.com/)
• Verizon Communications (http://www.verizon.com/)