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AT&T Inc. () is the largest provider of both local and long distance telephone services, wireless service, and DSL Internet access in the United States. AT&T is based in San Antonio , Texas , United States . Formerly SBC Communications, Inc., the company shed its name and took on the iconic AT&T moniker and the '''T''' stock-trading symbol (for "telephone") after its acquisition of AT&T Corporation . Since the break-up of American Telephone and Telegraph Company in 1984, most of the companies spun off from it (the ", Qwest , and AT&T Inc. Most of these companies are made up primarily of former components of American Telephone and Telegraph Company. For the new AT&T, these include many Bell Operating Companies and the Long Distance Division . Kleinfield, Sonny. The Biggest Company on Earth: A Profile of AT&T. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1981. HISTORY Founding, expansion AT&T Inc. was founded in 1983 as Southwestern Bell Corporation, headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri . It was one of the seven original Regional Bell Operating Companies , or "Baby Bells." The company — a holding company for Southwestern Bell Telephone Company — was created as a result of U.S. Antitrust action against American Telephone & Telegraph in 1983. It took full control of Southwestern Bell Telephone on January 1 , 1984 . In 1993, Southwestern Bell Corp. moved its headquarters to San Antonio, Texas , and, during its annual meeting of stockholders in 1995, the company announced that its name would be changed to ''SBC Communications, Inc''. The name change was an effort to reinforce the company's national and global reach and the company not only stated that "SBC" wasn't an acronym for Southwestern Bell Corporation, but that it did not stand for anything at all. SBC then proceeded (as permitted by the Telecommunications Act Of 1996 ) to acquire fellow Baby Bell Pacific Telesis , the Regional Bell operating company serving Nevada and California , in 1997 and the former independent Bell System franchise SNET (Southern New England Telephone). SBC then announced plans to acquire Ameritech , the Regional Bell Operating Company serving Illinois , Indiana , Michigan , Ohio , and Wisconsin , and told the FCC that it would allow competitors access to local markets where it had had a monopoly if the FCC would allow them to acquire Ameritech. The FCC agreed and in May 1998, SBC and Ameritech announced the merger would move forward. After making several organizational changes (such as the sale of Ameritech Wireless to GTE ) to satisfy state and Federal regulators, the two merged on October 8 , 1999 . The FCC later fined SBC Communications $6 million for failure to comply with agreements made in order to secure approval of the merger. On November 1 , 1999 , SBC became a part of the Dow Jones Industrial Average . In 2002 , SBC ended marketing its operating companies under different names, and simply opted to give its companies different Doing Business As names based on the state (a practice already in use by Ameritech since 1993 ), and it gave the holding companies it had purchased D/b/a names based on their general region. AT&T Corporation acquisition On January 31 , 2005 , SBC announced that it would purchase AT&T for more than $16 billion. The announcement came almost 8 years after SBC and AT&T called off their first merger talks and nearly a year after initial merger talks between AT&T and BellSouth fell apart. AT&T stockholders, meeting in Denver, approved the merger on June 30 , 2005 . The U.S. Department Of Justice cleared the merger on October 27 , 2005 , and the Federal Communications Commission approved it on October 31 , 2005 . The merger was finalized on November 18 2005 {Link without Title} . SBC changed its corporate name to AT&T Inc., and it adopted an updated logo. On December 1 , 2005 the combined company began trading under the historic "T" stock ticker symbol on the NYSE . To differentiate from the preceding company, AT&T is formally known as "AT&T Inc.", while the preceding company was "AT&T Corp." BellSouth acquisition On Friday and Yellowpages.com , once joint ventures between BellSouth and AT&T. All services, including wireless, are currently offered under the AT&T name. {Link without Title} {Link without Title} Transition to new media New Chairman and CEO, Randall Stephenson, discussed how wireless services are the core of "The New AT&T". 1 With declining sales of traditional home phone lines, AT&T plans to roll out various new medias such as VideoShare , U-Verse , and to extend its reach in High Speed Internet into rural areas across the country. He also has stated that AT&T will not make any more acquisitions for the time being. AT&T announced on June 29, 2007, however, that it was acquiring Dobson Communications . Bell Operating Companies Of the twenty-two Bell Operating Companies which AT&T owned prior to the 1984 agreement to divest, ten have become a part of the new AT&T Inc. with the completion of their acquisition of BellSouth Corporation on December 29 , 2006 :
AT&T owns the following operating companies not considered Bell Operating Companies:
Former operating companies The following companies have gone to defunct status under SBC/AT&T ownership:
"DOING BUSINESS AS" NAMES On January 15 , 2006 , AT&T began using new "doing business as" names for its Bell Operating Companies and their holding companies. The following d/b/a list shows the d/b/a names of each company, with its true legal name in parentheses, listed in order of acquisition. Holding companies are listed in bold; the only exception is Southwestern Bell Telephone, L.P., which is not a holding company, as it has always been directly held by AT&T Inc. since its inception as Southwestern Bell Corporation . AT&T Corporation and its holdings have been omitted, as its companies continue to do business under their legal name.
CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AT&T's current board mainly consists of members of SBC's board of directors.
CONTRIBUTIONS TO POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS According to the Center For Responsive Politics , AT&T is the United States' second largest donor to political campaigns, having contributed more than US$ 36 million since 1990 , 56% and 44% of which went to Republican and Democratic recipients, respectively. A key political issue for AT&T is the question of which businesses win the right to profit by providing Broadband Internet access in the United States. Center for Responsive Politics retrieved 2007-06-21 CENSORSHIP CONTROVERSY |
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