Pacific Bell

Infobox_Company
company_name = Pacific Bell Telephone Company
company_
company_type = Holding of AT&T
company_slogan =
foundation = 1880
location = San Francisco, CA, USA
key_people =
industry = Telecommunications
num_employees =
products = POTS, DSL, U-Verse (FTTN)
revenue =
parent = AT&T (1880-1983)
Pacific Telesis (1984-1997)
SBC/AT&T (1997-present)
dba = AT&T California
fka = The Pacific Telephone & Telegraph Company
homepage =

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 the "crown jewel" of the operating companies. [cite book
last = Coll
first = Steve
authorlink = Steve Coll
coauthors =
editor =
others =
title = The Deal of the Century: The breakup of AT&T
origdate =
origyear =
origmonth =
url =
format =
accessdate =
accessyear =
accessmonth =
edition =
date =
year = 1986
month =
publisher = Atheneum
location = New York
language =
id =
doi =
pages =
chapter =
chapterurl =
quote = ISBN 0-689-11757-4 ISBN 978-0-689-11757-2] 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.

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 exchange carrier 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.

Logos

References