Many of our readers (I hope we have older readers too, please?!) may have been around when there was really only one telephone company. We mean when telephones required a cord and had to be in your house or on the side of the street to work. To put history short, AT&T was brought to court and 1982 agreed to be broken up into seven regional companies. These companies were : Ameritech. Bell Atlantic, BellSouth, NYNEX, Pacific Telesis, Southwestern Bell, and. US West.
This time we are be going to be breaking our normal format to look at ads from these post AT&T companies with some history tidbits thrown in for effect. If you like our more wackier format , that's not going away , I just wanted to try something a little different.
But First These messages....
Ameritech , alphabetically, is the first company to arise out of the break up of AT&T in 1983, it embosed Illinois Bell, Indiana Bell, Michigan Bell, Ohio Bell, ,and Wisconsin Bell.
Wow an early ad from the company's existence. They play off the tech part of their name here by talking about their modern 1984 tech.
This company was so powerful they merged these states in one
Ahhh pay phones. I like how the lady broke down near a pay phone very convenient .
For the first few years , The other bell names stayed so that's why this says Indiana Bell with the tag line of "An Ameritech Company" In 1993 they dropped those names and just went with Americtech,
They put this pay phone in the sky!
In 1999 Ameritech merged with SBC, a company we'll get to later. More after the Jump
Next in alphabetical order was Bell Atlantic. Bell Atlantic serviced the Atlantic states with The Telephone Company of Pennsylvania (long name, guys) , New Jersey Bell, Diamond State Telephone, and C&P Telephone which is a combo of more companies. They served New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, and Washington D.C.
I do like the first ads with this one and Americtech showing off the the bell logos then merging into the future. Though, they kept the bell logo for their service.
This is the strangest episode of "Dragnet" ever.
This ad is more marketing toward people to put to put their business in the Yellow Pages vs telling people to use the Yellow Pages to find a business.
I wonder what she sells there.
I like how the ad stays in black and white until they show the yellow pages book at the end. And at least in 1985, they were still using the other bell names with Bell Atlantic.
Imposing on what I said above, like Ameritech, Bell Atlantic did eventually do away with the other names. This ad is to be like hey our name has changed but we are still that company you love.
Woah James Earl Jones.
James Earl Jones had been the spokesman for Bell Atlantic's commercials through out the 1990's.
I miss VH1's Pop Up Video and non modern VH1,
I love how it feels like a late 90's music video.
In 1996, they bought another former AT&T Company NYNEX . Who I'll get to later in this post plus a where are they now story. That's next on Pop up- Joshuaonline.
NYNEX was the phone company for Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, and most of New York State. They were even Headquartered in NYC.
I wanted to include a wireless ad because why not? This was also post merger but before NYNEX name was replaced by Bell Atlantic.
Now we take advantage of phone calls not being expensive but there was time this was a treasure.
Get it? Civil engineers, because they are being... civil get it? help!
NYNEX has this kind of play of word advertising, I like the concept and execution.
This is just fun.
1st and 10!
In 2000 , Bell Atlantic merged with a non AT&T phone company and became Verizon ,which it is to this day. (Unless this is the future and they merged with Comcast or something)
So, I'm including this just because it's awesome
I went off alphabet order there, but now I'm back in order, with Bell South.
Bell South was for the south (duh) it encompassed Southern Bell, South Central Bell.
Wow ! Paying for to redail someone!
They did the same as the others mentioned where they kept the old names with the Bell South company line on the bottom until the mid-nineties.
Like most 2000's phone companies they started offering DSL internet.
There's more to there story later ,but I have to go another former AT&T company to keep this story crafted well.
Pacific Telesis was the company for Pacific Bell and Nevada Bell.
Just in case you didn't know we are in California, California!
It really is quite interesting to know how relatively new the concept of being able to re dial someone is but, really hasn't been around that long but it's something we would just expect now.
Pactel's end and Ameritech's end all come to a company we haven't gotten to until next.
Southwestern Bell.
They got Richard Kind for this ad!
In 1995 the company re-branded as SBC get it? They got larger and for this post, they ended up buying Ameritech in 1998 and formally merging in 1999. The wireless part got sold to GTE which ended up with Bell Atlantic who became Verizon. What a small world. The Americtech name lasted for a few more years , later it just became SBC (or SBC Midwest) in 2003.
In 1997 they picked up Pactel . As mentioned before , they dropped all the names and just became SBC.
Here's another part of the SBC story. Do you remember Cingular Wireless? They in conjunction with Bell South created the mobile company , Cingular in 2000. It was a merger a bunch of smaller mobile and companies or mobile divisions of companies. They ended up buying AT&T wireless in 2004.
AT&T didn't all the way die with the break up and they lingered doing more communications stuff like long distance services.
In a twist, SBC which was once part of AT&T purchased AT&T in 2005. They rebranded the company as AT&T.
In 2006, now AT&T acquired, BellSouth meaning that AT&T had gathered most of it's former parts back together. Cingular Wireless was re branded as AT&T Mobility in 2007.
Which means that people that had AT&T Wireless before 2005, ended up Cingular then back to AT&T without lifting a finger. (well maybe one finger)
So yes, SBC became the current AT&T that is now super large with buying DirecTV and Time Warner.
And now the final company. US West. This one hits close since I'm from Colorado and they were the phone company for Colorado. They were in the states of : Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. Their headquarters were in Denver. They were the combo of Mountain Bell, Northwestern Bell, and Pacific Northwest Bell
US West was also in the mobile business.
Kind of a strange ad there.
They had their own phone book called, US West Dex
In this ad they also joined the internet world too!
I haven't mentioned Caller ID in this , so it was time. Interesting how recent this came into use yet something we just know exists these days and think it would be strange if your phone didn't say who was calling you.
oh hey it's Ellen.
In 2000, US West was hostile takeovered by Qwest and they became Qwest until 2011 when they were purchased by Century Link.
That's it for now, hope you enjoyed this slightly more historical version of "But First These Messages" now to make a phone call, does anybody have a quarter?
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