Cincinnati Bell - History

History

Cincinnati Bell started out as the City and Suburban Telegraph Company and was providing telegraph lines between homes and businesses in 1873, three years before the invention of the telephone. In 1878, it gained exclusive rights to the Bell franchise within a 25-mile (40-km) radius of Cincinnati; it has substantially the same incumbent local exchange carrier territory today: straddling a 3-state area.

Cincinnati Bell and Southern New England Telephone were the only two companies in the old Bell System that operated independently because AT&T only owned minority stakes in the companies. Therefore, neither is considered a Regional Bell Operating Company (RBOC), AT&T was not obligated to dispose of their ownership stakes in the companies, and restrictions placed on the Baby Bells did not apply to these two companies. AT&T owned 32.6% of Cincinnati Bell until 1984, at which point the shares AT&T owned were placed into a trust and then sold. In 1998, SNET was bought by SBC Communications, a RBOC, but Cincinnati Bell has remained independent.

During the 1990s, Cincinnati Bell acquired a nationwide transmission network formerly known as IXC Communications and changed its corporate name to "Broadwing Communications," although the local telephone operations continued to operate under their traditional name. In the 2000s, the holding company divested the long-distance operation as Broadwing Corporation and changed its name back to Cincinnati Bell.

In 2002, Cincinnati Bell sold Cincinnati Bell Directory, consisting of its directory operations, to Spectrum Equity. The resulting company is named CBD Media. The sale marked the first time a former Bell System-affiliated company sold off its directory operations.

Cincinnati Bell is the only American company that continues to publicly do business under the "Bell" name. In 2006, Cincinnati Bell ceased corporate usage of the last Bell logo, designed in 1969 by Saul Bass, simply opting to use the stylized, shadowed version of its corporate name on its website. It does, however, use the Bell logo as a favicon on its website and uses the Bell logo with company name in secondary applications. Prior to 2006, the company had removed the Bell logo from its telephone directories' covers. It also still appears on older maintenance vehicles.

The newsmagazine 60 Minutes reported in 1989 that Cincinnati Bell cooperated with local police to wiretap local residents in search of alleged communist or criminal activity from 1972 to 1984. In a move widely criticized by consumer advocates, Cincinnati Bell was also the first phone company in Ohio to take advantage of a 2005 state law that lets phone companies raise rates without having to gain approval from state regulators.

Cincinnati Bell's original headquarters, the Cincinnati and Suburban Telephone Company Building, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.