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.
I believe that the AT&T's ownership and influence was strong enough that those companies appeared to be just like other Bell companies.
Despite the Bell Systems very extensive standardization* there were differences between the individual companies and even within a company. Part of this came from state PUC mandates. In terms of business office computerization, some companies used Univac, some used IBM and obviously not a standard set of commercial (billing, payroll) software.
long distance provider, and that VeriZon is even more "unique" in that
Just a side note, Verizon doesn't have (nor ever did) a capital Z.**
So Cincinnati Bell is not owned by one of the "big" regional baby bells? Who is "Broadwing"?
- The Pennsylvania Railroad once had a slogan "the standard railroad of the world". People mistook that to me it was heavilly standardized. What it actually meant was that the railroad was the leader, the "standard-bearer" of all other railroads. At one time 100 years ago, "standard" meant leader ("standard" was a synonym for flag or emblem).