AT&T is the past and present telephone company, once known as American Telephone & Telegraph or the Bell System. Originally, they were Downriver's dominant telephone provider, with the only alternatives being GTE and some little-known locally-run companies.
This monopoly ended in 1984, when federal government orders resulted in the Bell System divestiture. AT&T was broken up into a long-distance provider which took up the AT&T name, a research and manufacturing company called Bell Labs and the Regional Bell Operating Companies (or Baby Bells), one of which was Michigan Bell parent Ameritech, which, ironically, actually had their corporate offices based in Chicago. Additionally, the familiar bell symbol was phased out in favor of a simple white globe with blue stripes, known as the Death Star.
In the 1990s, a number of significant corporate changes occurred. The RBOCs began merging with each other and Bell Labs became Lucent. Meanwhile, AT&T was now starting to face competition from MCI and Sprint.
As the 21st century began, Ameritech itself was taken over by another RBOC, SBC (the former Southwestern Bell). SBC then stunned the industry in 2005 when it announced that it would acquire the long-distance AT&T and the resulting new company took on the AT&T name.
