Regional Bell Operating Company

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Image:RBOC map.png The Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOC) are the result of the U.S. Department of Justice antitrust suit against AT&T. On January 8, 1982, AT&T settled the suit and agreed to divest ("spin off") its local exchange service operating companies in return for a chance to go into the Internet services industry. Effective January 1, 1984, AT&T's local operations were split into seven independent Regional Bell Operating Companies known as "Baby Bells." RBOCs were originally known as Regional Holding Companies, or RHCs ^[1].

After the Modification of Final Judgment, the resulting Baby Bells were originally:

Ameritech ... (now part of AT&T)
Bell Atlantic ... (now part of Verizon)
BellSouth Corporation ... (Merging with AT&T pending shareholder and regulatory approval)
NYNEX ... (now part of Verizon)
Pacific Telesis Group ... (now part of AT&T)
Southwestern Bell Corporation ... (now part of AT&T)
US West ... (now part of Qwest)

Prior to 1984, AT&T also held investments in two smaller and otherwise independent companies, Cincinnati Bell and Southern New England Telephone (SNET). Following the 1984 breakup, these became fully independent as well. All nine local-exchange companies were assigned a share of the rights to the Bell trademark. Additionally, there was one comparably-sized independent (non-Bell) company, GTE.

Many of these companies have since merged, leaving only 4 regional telephone companies in the United States. After the 1984 breakup, part of AT&T's Bell Labs was split off into Bellcore, which would serve as an R&D and standards body for the seven Baby Bells. Image:Rbocs.gif

In 1997, Bell Atlantic was acquired by NYNEX (taking the Bell Atlantic name), which later, in 2000, merged with GTE to form Verizon. In 2005, following a protracted bidding war with rival RBOC Qwest, Verizon announced that it would acquire the long distance company MCI. The Verizon and MCI merger closed on January 6, 2006.
Southwestern Bell Corporation changed its name to SBC Communications in 1995, and acquired Pacific Telesis in 1997, SNET in 1998, and Ameritech in 1999. In February 2005, SBC announced its plans to acquire former parent company AT&T Corporation for over $16 billion. SBC kept the AT&T name upon merger closure, which closed on November 18, 2005. SBC began trading as AT&T, Inc. on December 1, 2005 but began re-branding as early as November 21.
In 2000, US West was merged into Qwest, a Denver-based fiber optics long-distance company.
On March 5, 2006, it was announced that AT&T would purchase BellSouth for $67 billion U.S., in an all-stock deal.
The former independent Bell System franchise Cincinnati Bell will be the only Bell that remains as originally conceived, and will be the only company that still carries the "Bell" name. It still uses the last Bell logo, designed in 1969 by Saul Bass, though Verizon continues to use the Bell logo on its payphones (including former GTE payphones) and trucks.