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Southwestern Bell Telephone, L.P. is a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T founded in 1920 as '''Southwestern Bell Telephone Company'''. It does business as '''AT&T Southwest''' and other D/b/a names in five states. (For a full list of its d/b/a names, see "Branding" below.) Southwestern Bell Telephone is currently headquartered in Dallas, TX at One AT&T Plaza . OVERVIEW Southwestern Bell Telephone Company Southwestern Bell Telephone Company was officially founded in 1920 to take over the telephone operations of Southwestern Telegraph & Telephone Co., The Bell Telephone Company of Missouri, among others. In its time as part of the Bell System , it was at times the biggest Bell Operating Company of the 22 AT&T owned. The company was often considered the first step of the AT&T corporate "ladder" before the 1984 breakup. After the 1984 breakup of AT&T, it was allowed to keep its directory publishing operations, commonly known as "SWBYP'S" (Southwestern Bell Yellow Pages, pronounced ''swah-bips''). Shortly after the 1984 AT&T breakup, Southwestern Bell began licensing its name to Conair, creating Southwestern Bell Freedom Phone. Conair continues to produce the Southwestern Bell Freedom Phone line of telephones. Changes Southwestern Bell Corporation ''For current information on SBC, see AT&T .'' After the AT&T breakup in 1984 , Southwestern Bell Telephone Company was managed by Southwestern Bell Corporation , which was ironically the smallest of all of the 7 RBOCs , as it only held 1 telephone company. Both the holding company, SBC, and Southwestern Bell Telephone often were referred to as one "Southwestern Bell". In 1995 , however, SBC decided to change its corporate name to SBC Communications, Inc. , a decision made to make itself a national telecommunications company. The Telecommunications Act Of 1996 enabled SBC to become a national company, and SBC acquired the Pacific Telesis Group in 1997 ; Southern New England Telecommunications in 1998 , and Ameritech in 1999 . Branding After completion of the acquisitions, in 1999 , SBC began to attach its corporate name to the names of the Bell Operating Companies it owned. The first change was "Southwestern Bell" with the Bell logo being followed by a divider line with "SBC Global Network" enclosed in a circle with the Pacific Telesis "access" mark. (Prior to this, Southwestern Bell was never advertised in conjunction with its holding company, as the other Baby Bells had done with their Bell Operating Companies after 1984.) In 2000 , the Bell logo was dropped from the mark of Southwestern Bell. In 2001 , SBC decided to drop the old font of Southwestern Bell and "SBC Global Network" altogether, and place the SBC corporate logo in front of the name "Southwestern Bell", with the name beginning under the "C" of SBC. Finally, in 2002 , SBC dropped the names of all its operating companies, simply resulting in "SBC" as a national brand. As SBC was made a national brand, Southwestern Bell Telephone continued to do business as "Southwestern Bell". In January 2003 , however, SBC began to change its D/b/a names, resulting in Southwestern Bell Telephone, L.P. being conjoined with the titles:
SBC then created SBC Southwest as a collective d/b/a name for all of the former Southwestern Bell Telephone operations. SBC Communications merged with AT&T Corp. on November 18 , 2005 , and changed its name to AT&T Inc. AT&T companies, on January 15 , 2006 , were given new D/b/a names. As a result, Southwestern Bell Telephone, L.P. is now joined with the titles:
The collective d/b/a name is now AT&T Southwest. Even though Southwestern Bell Telephone does business as what may appear as five different companies, it was not split into five companies. The five AT&T "state" d/b/a names for Southwestern Bell are used in reference to the operations in each state, as were the SBC names that preceded them; "AT&T Southwest" (or "SBC Southwest") means the company as a whole. At one time, SBC had organized Southwestern Bell Texas, Inc. as a nominally separate operating company for Texas; however, it was merged into Southwestern Bell Telephone Company as part of its conversion to a limited partnership in 2001 {Link without Title} . Even when it was separate on paper, Southwestern Bell Texas continued to operate merely as the Texas division of Southwestern Bell Telephone. HEADQUARTERS Southwestern Bell Telephone headquarters are currently located in Dallas, TX at One AT&T Plaza . Previously before being relocated to Dallas, TX , Southwestern Bell Telephone was headquartered at One Bell Center (now One AT&T Center , also former SBC headquarters) in St. Louis, MO , where AT&T Yellow Pages is still headquartered. REFERENCES SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS LOGOS |
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