While it is true that pre-divestiture AT&T owned less than 50% of Cincinnati Bell and Connecticut's SNET (Southern New England Tel), and that Judge Greene treated each one "separately" for the 1984 divestiture, AT&T did consider both to be "Bell" telcos prior to
1984. Both of them were fully able to participate in Western Electric and Bell Labs licensing, patents, trademarks, products, technology, etc. Both of these "partially AT&T held" telcos also used the "Bell" logo all throughout the pre-1984 "Bell System" history.Prior to 1984, there were times when you'd see lists of the various Bell operating companies of the "Bell System", and both Cincinnati Bell and Southern New England Tel would indeed be included in the list, although sometimes at the end of the list, or as a passing "footnote", but they were indeed frequently mentioned in lists of the operating telcos of the Bell System. Also, AT&T did treat them, and Bell Canada as well, a bit more "special", since AT&T did realize that they were NOT the controlling entity,
At divestiture, I think that Greene made AT&T sell-off their actual less-than-50% shares of Cincinnati Bell and SNET. Cincinnati Bell was NOT placed under Ameritech -- SNET was NOT placed under NYNEX. Some industry documents in the post-divestiture period began to list Cincinnati Bell and SNET as "independent" or non-BOC telcos. Of course in the post-divestiture period, especially as we got further away from
1984, what "really" does Bell vs. "independent" stand for anymore, especially now that Qwest is both a former BOC (US West's Mountain Bell, Pacific Northwest Bell, Northwestern Bell) *and* a competitive long distance provider, and that VeriZon is even more "unique" in that it is: a merger of two BOCs (Bell Atlantic's various Bell telcos and NYNEX' two Bell telcos), a merger of two one-time *independent* telcos (GTE and Contel, GTE once the largest "independent" telco), and even more recently buying out *MCI*, that entity that was the first competitive long distance company that "started it all"!SNET, Southern New England Telephone Company, did NOT have the word "Bell" in their name, and also dropped the "Bell" logo immediately at divestiture.
Cincinnati Bell retained the use of the "Bell" logo until very recently. Sometime in 2006, Cincinnati Bell seems to have dropped the use of the 1970s-era "Bell" logo in their ads and such, but they still retain the use of "Bell" in their name. Yes, Broadwing was the name of the hodling company of Cincinnati Bell for some time, at least in the
1990s, but I don't presently see their name associated with Cincinnati Bell anymore.SNET was bought out by SBC about ten years ago, about the same time that SBC (formerly known as Southwestern Bell) bought out one of the seven resulting post-divestiture Bell holding companies, Pacific Telesis. I think that SBC's takeover of Pacific Telesis and SNET was the first time that one regional Bell holding company bought out any other. It pre-dates Bell Atlantic's takeover of NYNEX by about a year, IIRC. SBC then subsequently bought out Ameritech, and then AT&T, and now-SBC's "at&t" buys out BellSouth.
Pacific Telesis was the post-divestiture holding company for both Nevada Bell, and California's Pacific Bell (prior to 1984 known as Pacific Telephone (and Telegraph).
AT&T always did own a minority share of Bell Canada and other associated telco operations in Canada, but they did own a nice sizeable minority share of Bell Canada at one time. In the 1956 consent decree, it was decided that AT&T would reduce their holdings of Bell Canada over a twenty year period. By the late 1960s or early
1970s, AT&T was down to owning just 2% of Bell Canada. During that time, Bell Canada and Northern Electric began to start their own R&D operation called "Bell Northern Research", since when the final separation would come, they would no longer have the same "Bell" rights to Western Electric and Bell Labs R&D/etc. BNR and Northern Electric (later Northern Telcom or Nortel) began to develop things like the DMS switch and TOPS operator service platform, in direct competition to what Western Electric had been offering. It was during 1975, about ten years prior to the effective 1984 date of the US' Bell System divestiture, when the final separation finally took effect regarding the US' AT&T/Western Electric/Bell Labs, and Canada's Bell Canada/Northern Electric (now Telecom/Bell Northern Research.With 1975, Bell Canada dropped all use of the "Bell" logo, and they were using the 1964-68 version even into the early 1970s -- they never did switch over to the 1970s+ "Bell" logo. And Bell Canada began to be treated by AT&T and the rest of the North American telco industry as any other "independent" telco. But at one time, especially prior to the 1970s-era, Bell Canada was frequently treated, listed, etc., just like any other AT&T-held Bell telco in the US.
It's also interesting to note that in more recent years, both AT&T and Bell Canada no longer own their R&D/manufacturing operations! AT&T's Western Electric was spun-off into Lucent which has now been taken over by France's Alcatel, and Bell Canada no longer owns Nortel.
But what's also interesting to note is that for a few years in the later 1990s and into the 2000s, 20% of Bell Canada was owned by Ameritech. When SBC bought out Ameritech circa 2000, they inherited this 20% of Bell Canada. While Bell Canada bought back this 20% about a year or two later (2002?), it would have been quite interesting if SBC still held this 20% of Bell Canada when they also bought out AT&T in late 2005! *IF* Bell Canada were still 20% held by SBC, when SBC bought out AT&T almost two years ago, I wonder if Bell Canada would have changed their logos and such to "at&t" (lowercase)!?
AT&T did invest in Unitel (and Rogers, Cantel, etc) for a while in the
1990s, and Unitel was renamed AT&T-Canada Long Distance as well. Unitel was originally the telecom operations (telephone, telegraph, telex, etc) of the dominant telegraph/telex carrier in Canada which was once the two major railways, Canadian National and Canadian Pacific. Unitel or AT&T-Canada LD was in direct competition with the incumbent Canadian telcos which includes the one-time partially AT&T-held Bell Canada! But by 2002, AT&T began to withdraw from their one-time Unitel operations in Canada, which became known as Allstream. Then Manitoba's MTS (the provincial local and toll incumbent telco) buys into Allstream. (and MTS was also partially held by Bell Canada for a few years in the late 1990s and early 2000s, until Bell sold their shares).