Pacific Bell - Mergers

Mergers

In 1997, Pacific Telesis Group was acquired by SBC Communications, and although the Pacific Telesis corporate name disappeared fairly quickly, SBC continued to operate the local telephone companies separately under their original names.

In September 2001, SBC rebranded the telephone company "SBC Pacific Bell". In late 2002, the companies were rebranded again as simply "SBC". Meanwhile, employees of SBC working in California who support SBC's non-regulated services and/or services provided both within and outside California were transferred to other SBC subsidiaries, like "Pacific Telesis Shared Services" and "SBC Operations, Inc." However, for legal and regulatory purposes, employees supporting local regulated services were still employed by "Pacific Bell Telephone Company dba SBC California ("SBC California")" which is the SBC subsidiary that provides regulated local exchange carrier telephone services within the franchise territory in California.

On November 18, 2005, SBC completed its acquisition of AT&T Corp. to form AT&T Inc. Pacific Bell is now known as Pacific Bell Telephone Company, d/b/a AT&T California.

In 2006, the company's direct parent became AT&T Teleholdings, originally Ameritech, upon an internal reorganization at AT&T. Its former direct parent, Pacific Telesis Group, was legally merged into AT&T Teleholdings.

In 2007, local telephone service in California was deregulated, resulting in price increases for AT&T California customers.