AT&T

(AT&T Corporation, New York, www.att.com) A leading long distance and local telephone company and provider of business networks and services.

Founded in 1885 as American Telephone and Telegraph Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of American Bell Telephone Company, its telephone service, eventually reaching coast-to-coast, made it the largest corporation in America. Nearly 100 years later on January 1, 1984, it was relieved of its operating telephone companies by Federal court order. AT&T went through a major change from the world's largest government-regulated monopoly to a competitive enterprise. Whenever you read about "Divestiture" in the telecom world, it refers to this breakup.

AT&T dabbled in the PC market for a short while, but in 1991, it acquired NCR, one of the first computer companies. AT&T changed NCR's name to AT&T GIS, only to spin it back off five years later with the original NCR name.

In 1996, intentionally this time, AT&T created a "Trivestiture" by dividing itself into three independent companies: (1) AT&T for telecommunications, (2) Lucent Technologies for manufacturing and (3) AT&T GIS for computers, which restored its NCR name.

In 2001, AT&T spun off its cellphone business into AT&T Wireless, an independent company, which merged with Cingular in 2004. After trivestiture, AT&T acquired the cable TV operations of TCI Corporation and MediaOne, making it the largest cable operator in the U.S. In 2002, the company sold its cable business to Comcast.

In 2005, AT&T merged with SBC, itself a merger of some of the original AT&T operating companies. AT&T also regained the cellphone business it spun off a few years earlier because Cingular was owned by SBC. After 20 years, the father was absorbed by several of its sons. See Lucent and NCR.

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AT&T - American Telephone and Telegraph, Inc.