Illinois Bell

The Illinois Bell Telephone Company is a Bell System internet and telephone telecommunications group in the Midwestern state of Illinois. The network does business as AT&T Illinois under AT&T Teleholdings (which was once Ameritech). It was established in 1920.

After the 1984 Bell System breakup, Illinois Bell became a division of Ameritech (one of seven or eight Regional Bell Operating Companies. The Illinois Bell name was used until early 1993, after which Ameritech stopped using this and four other state names and started using Ameritech as their corporate name.

In 1998 Ameritech made plans for being merged into what was then SBC Communications (another former Regional Bell Operating Company). The merger was not received well at first. Later it was allowed to happen with several restrictions. The two networks were officially merged in October 1999. However, the name Ameritech was still used until 2002. In 2001, the company began doing business as SBC Ameritech Illinois.

The later years
In autumn or early winter 2002, SBC dropped the Ameritech name. They started using SBC as a national and corporate brand. On January 1, 2003, Illinois Bell was renamed the Illinois Bell Telephone Company d/b/a/ SBC Illinois for regulatory business.. The name was changed again three years later. That was after SBC Communications' bought AT&T. The name then became AT&T Illinois.

References

Category:American telephone companies
Category:1920 establishments
Category:Companies based in Illinois