GTE Corporation, formerly General Telephone & Electronics Corporation (1955–1982), was the largest independent telephone company in the United States during the days of the Bell System. The company operated from 1926, with roots tracing further back than that, until 2000, when it was acquired by Bell Atlantic, which changed its name to Verizon.
A telephone, colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into electronic signals that are transmitted via cables and other communication channels to another telephone which reproduces the sound to the receiving user. The term is derived from Ancient Greek: τῆλε, romanized: tēle, lit. 'far' and φωνή, together meaning distant voice.
Local access and transport area (LATA) is a term used in U.S. telecommunications regulation. It represents a geographical area of the United States under the terms of the Modification of Final Judgment (MFJ) entered by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in Civil Action number 82-0192 or any other geographic area designated as a LATA in the National Exchange Carrier Association, Inc. Tariff FCC No. 4. that precipitated the breakup of the original AT&T into the "Baby Bells" or created since that time for wireline regulation.
A Regional Bell Operating Company (RBOC) was a corporate entity created as result of the antitrust lawsuit by the U.S. Department of Justice against the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) in 1974 and settled in the Modification of Final Judgment on January 8, 1982.
Bell Canada is a Canadian telecommunications company headquartered at 1 Carrefour Alexander-Graham-Bell in the borough of Verdun, Quebec, in Canada. It is an ILEC in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec; as such, it was a founding member of the Stentor Alliance. It is also a CLEC for enterprise customers in the western provinces.
US West, Inc. was one of seven Regional Bell Operating Companies, created in 1983 under the Modification of Final Judgement, a case related to the antitrust breakup of AT&T. US West provided local telephone and intraLATA long-distance services, data transmission services, cable television services, wireless communications services and related telecommunications products to defined areas in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. US West was a public company traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "USW" with headquarters at 1801 California Street in Denver, Colorado.
The monopoly position of the Bell System in the U.S. was ended on January 8, 1982. AT&T Corporation proposed by in a consent decree to relinquish control of the Bell Operating Companies, which had provided local telephone service in the United States. AT&T would continue to be a provider of long-distance service, while the now-independent Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs), nicknamed the "Baby Bells", would provide local service, and would no longer be directly supplied with equipment from AT&T subsidiary Western Electric.
The Pacific Northwest Bell Telephone Company is a telecommunications company that provides local telecommunications services in Oregon, Washington, and northern Idaho. Pacific Northwest Bell Telephone Company was formed on July 1, 1961, when it was spun off from the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company. It was the local exchange carrier for the Bell System, the AT&T Corporation-controlled network of companies. On January 1, 1984, Pacific Northwest Bell was split from AT&T as ordered in the settlement of United States v. AT&T and became a subsidiary of the newly formed Regional Bell Operating Company US West. Pacific Northwest Bell became dormant when US West consolidated its three main operating subsidiaries, forming US West Communications, Inc. on January 1, 1991. US West merged with Qwest Communications International Inc. in 2000, and the US West brand was replaced by the Qwest brand. Qwest Communications merged with Louisiana-based CenturyLink in 2011, and the Qwest brand was replaced by the CenturyLink brand. It now does business with the Lumen Technologies brand as of 2020.
Qwest Corporation is a Regional Bell Operating Company owned by Lumen Technologies. It was originally named Mountain States Telephone and Telegraph Company, later becoming known as Mountain Bell, then US West Communications, Inc. from 1991 to 2000. It includes the former operations of Malheur Bell, Northwestern Bell and Pacific Northwest Bell as well.
This history of the telephone chronicles the development of the electrical telephone, and includes a brief overview of its predecessors. The first telephone patent was granted to Alexander Graham Bell in 1869.
Herman Kountze was a powerful and influential pioneer banker in Omaha, Nebraska, during the late 19th century. After organizing the Kountze Brothers Bank in 1857 as the second bank in Omaha, Herman and his brothers Augustus, Charles and Luther changed the charter in 1863, opening the First National Bank of Omaha that year. Kountze was involved in a number of influential ventures around Omaha, including the development of the Omaha Stockyards and the Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition of 1898. Immediately after his death Kountze was regarded as one of Omaha's "old settlers". Today Kountze's First National Bank is the oldest bank west of the Mississippi River, and continues as a privately held company in its sixth generation of family ownership.
Comcast MO Group, Inc. is a telecommunications company created by US West Inc. in 1998 following US West's acquisition of Boston-based Continental Cable. The company combined Continental with Wometco/GTC, which US West had previously acquired. Wometco/GTC had adopted the MediaOne name a year earlier. Media One Group was acquired in 2000 by AT&T Broadband, which was subsequently acquired by Comcast in 2002.
The AT&T Building is a 334 foot, 16-story skyscraper in Downtown Omaha, Nebraska, United States. It was the tallest structure in downtown Omaha until the Woodmen Tower and later First National Bank Tower surpassed it in height. The original 15 story building was built in 1918, a twelve-story addition was added on the north end in 1957 and another on the west end in 1964. An additional story was added in 1970 to bring it to sixteen stories. It was home to The Northwestern Bell headquarters until 1991 when US West merged its three Bell Operating Companies. The building is now used for Lumen's Omaha operations.
Qwest Communications International, Inc. was a United States telecommunications carrier. Qwest provided local service in 14 western and midwestern U.S. states: Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.
The Bell System was a system of telecommunication companies, led by the Bell Telephone Company and later by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), that dominated the telephone services industry in North America for over 100 years from its creation in 1877 until its antitrust breakup in 1983. The system of companies was often colloquially called Ma Bell, as it held a vertical monopoly over telecommunication products and services in most areas of the United States and Canada. At the time of the breakup of the Bell System in the early 1980s, it had assets of $150 billion and employed over one million people.
Lumen Technologies, Inc. is an American telecommunications company headquartered in Monroe, Louisiana, which offers communications, network services, security, cloud solutions, voice and managed services through its fiber optic and copper networks, as well as its data centers and cloud computing services. The company has been included in the S&P 600 index since being removed from the S&P 500 in March 2023.
The Northwestern Bell Telephone Company Regional Headquarters building in Omaha, Nebraska was built in 1957 as the headquarters of Northwestern Bell, the telephone company that served Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, Minnesota, and North Dakota. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009 for its architectural significance as a modern corporate office building in Omaha, as well as Omaha's status as a regional center of communication and commerce at the time.
