SBC Communications

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

**SBC Communications Inc**

Type	Public
Founded	1984 (as Southwestern Bell Corporation)
Location	San Antonio, TX, USA
Key people	Edward Whitacre, Jr., CEO & Chairman
Industry	Telecommunications
Products	Telephone, Internet
Revenue	$40.787 billion USD (2004)
Employees	167,000
Website	www.sbc.com

SBC Communications NYSE: SBC is an American telecommunications company based in San Antonio, Texas. According to Tier1 Research, SBC is as of January, 2005 the largest telecommunications carrier in the United States.

1 The company
2 Places named after SBC
3 SBC's competitors
4 See also
5 External links

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The company

The name SBC was formerly an abbreviation for Southwestern Bell Corporation. Southwestern Bell was one of the original Regional Bell operating companies, or "Baby Bells," formed after U.S. antitrust action against AT&T in 1983. AT&T had adopted the name Southwestern Bell for its local operations in Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, and Arkansas in April 1920. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 allowed Southwestern Bell to become a national telephone provider, and it subsequently bought fellow Baby Bells Pacific Telesis and Ameritech, then bought independent Bell System franchise SNET.

In 1995, Southwestern Bell changed its name to SBC Communications Inc. The company has stated that SBC no longer stands for anything. SBC told the FCC that they would allow competitors if the FCC would allow them to acquire Ameritech. The FCC later fined SBC Communications $6 million for not complying with what they promised the FCC.

In May 1998, SBC and Ameritech, the Regional Bell operating company serving Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin, announced merger plans. After making several organizational changes (such as the sale of Ameritech Wireless to GTE) to satisfy state and Federal regulators, the two merged on October 8, 1999.

SBC currently provides local telephone service in 13 states (Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, Wisconsin) and long distance service to 10 million customers, and owns 60% of mobile phone provider Cingular. Cingular acquired AT&T Wireless in 2004, making Cingular the largest mobile phone service in the United States, with over 50 million subscribers. (Fellow Baby Bell BellSouth owns the other 40% of Cingular.) SBC is also a large American Internet Service Provider, and is the largest DSL provider in the US, with more than 5.1 million DSL lines.

On January 31, 2005, SBC announced that it would purchase AT&T for more than $16 billion. The acquisition is expected to be completed by the end of 2005, barring any regulatory difficulties. On October 27, 2005, SBC annouced that they will take the AT&T name upon completion of the merger (becoming AT&T, Inc.), and a new logo and stock ticker symbol will be released when the merger is finalized. SBC said it will take the AT&T name since it is well-known around the globe, compared with SBC, which is known mainly within its 13 state footprint.

Customer service reps often fail to provide full disclosure when selling service to clients. For example, the DSL service provided by SBC requires a three month notice prior to cancellation. A DSL customer, then, would be obligated to pay for three additional months.

SBC Customer service reps also frequently advise clients that they can "save them money" by offering a variation of their current service package. While the new package may reduce one aspect of the client's monthly obligation, another feature of the package may increase the client's monthly obligation resulting in a net increase in the client's bill.

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