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Company type | Division |
---|---|
Industry | Telecommunications |
Predecessor | Pacific Telephone and Telegraph |
Founded | July 1, 1961 |
Defunct | 1994 |
Fate | Merged into Mountain Bell |
Successor | US WEST Communications |
Headquarters | , U.S. |
Area served | Oregon, Washington, Northern Idaho |
Parent | AT&T (1961–1983) US WEST (1984–1994) [1] [2] |
The Pacific Northwest Bell Telephone Company is a telecommunications company that provided 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. US West consolidated its three main operating subsidiaries, forming US West Communications, Inc. on January 1, 1991. PNB went out of operation three plus years following the mergers. [3] 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. [4] [5]
On March 7, 1883, the Sunset Telephone-Telegraph Company opened for business with 90 subscribers. This first office was in rented space in the Western Union Telegraph office. Weeks later the company moved into its own building at the corner of Second Avenue and Cherry Street in Seattle, WA. [6]
In 1899 the original company was reincorporated as the Sunset Telephone and Telegraph Company and continued under that name until 1917 when the Sunset Company (which had grown to provide service throughout Washington and northern Idaho) merged with the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company.
Telephones began to crop up all over Oregon, Washington and northern Idaho. The first Seattle-Tacoma to Portland toll line was built in 1893. Assorted independent telephone companies set up competitive business throughout Oregon and Washington. With competition both the Bell and independent companies found it hard to do business and make money. Under the leadership of J. P. Morgan, the nation's most powerful banker, the Bell companies around the country began to buy out their major competitors. By 1924, the Pacific Telephone & Telegraph Company had acquired most of the independents' property along the Pacific Coast. Headquartered in San Francisco, the Bell operating company served customers in California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and northern Idaho.
As the Pacific Northwest grew in population, AT&T made plans to split off Pacific Telephone and Telegraph's operations there to better serve the region. AT&T started the process by creating a division within the company called Pacific Telephone Northwest on February 1, 1960, then filing articles of incorporation for Pacific Northwest Bell, the new entity that would serve the region, on March 27, 1961. [7] [8] The Washington Public Service Commission approved the formation of Pacific Northwest Bell on June 5, with the separation occurring at midnight on July 1. [9] [7] Its service territory included Oregon, Washington and northern Idaho (Southern Idaho was served by Mountain Bell). The new company's first major job was to build the world's most advanced telephone service to serve the Seattle World's Fair which was scheduled to open in less than ten months (April 21, 1962.) This was accomplished.
On January 1, 1984, as part of the breakup of AT&T, Pacific Northwest Bell, Mountain Bell and Northwestern Bell became part of US West. The company continued to use the logo it adopted in 1969 but also used a variation which included the tagline "A US West Company".
In 1988, all three of US West's operating companies began doing business as US West Communications. However, the three companies remained legally separate until January 1, 1991, when US West merged its operating companies into Mountain Bell. On the same day, Mountain Bell formally changed its name to US West Communications. The name is still a registered federal trademark and the domain pacificnorthwestbell.com is also active and points to the CenturyLink website.
Pacific Northwest Bell's headquarters was located in a 32-story building at 1600 Seventh Avenue in Seattle. The building, which was constructed in 1976, was retained by US West and Qwest; CenturyLink sold it in 2012 after acquiring Qwest the previous year. [10]
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 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.
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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.
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Northwestern Bell Telephone Company was an American telecommunications service provider that served the states of the upper Midwest opposite the Southwestern Bell area, including Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota and Nebraska. As of late summer 1994, this telephone company is no longer operating. The company did business as US West from 1984, was later merged with Mountain Bell and the Pacific Northwest Bell in the late 1980s and then later phased away and dissolved. The successors of the Northwestern Bell Telephone were US West.
Northwest Fiber, LLC, doing business as Ziply Fiber, is an American telecommunications company based in Kirkland, Washington. Owned by WaveDivision Capital, the company operates fiber-optic broadband services in the Pacific Northwest, serving 1.3 million residential and business customers in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana. It has major offices in Everett, Washington, Beaverton, Oregon, and Hayden, Idaho.
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1600 Seventh is a 32-story, 498 ft (152 m) skyscraper in Seattle, Washington, United States. Designed by John Graham & Company, it was completed in 1976; as of 2022, it is the 22nd-tallest building in the city. Originally built as the headquarters of Pacific Northwest Bell, it was first known as the Pacific Northwest Bell Building during construction and subsequently as 1600 Bell Plaza upon opening; it was later known as Bell Plaza and Qwest Plaza under US West and Qwest ownership.
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.
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