Ameritech Mobile Communications, LLC was the first company in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...

to provide cellular

mobile phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...

service to the general public. Cell service became publicly available in Chicago on October 13, 1983. The company was a division of

Ameritech AT&T Teleholdings, Inc., formerly known as Ameritech Corporation (and before that American Information Technologies Corporation), is an American telecommunications company that arose out of the 1984 AT&T divestiture. Ameritech was one of the se ...

which, as of January 1, 1984, was the

holding company A holding company is a company whose primary business is holding a controlling interest in the securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not produce goods or services itself. Its purpose is to own shares of other companies ...

Illinois Bell Illinois Bell Telephone Company, LLC is the Bell Operating Company serving Illinois. It is owned by AT&T through AT&T Teleholdings, formerly Ameritech. Their headquarters are at 225 West Randolph St., Chicago, IL. After the 1984 Bell System ...

Michigan Bell Michigan Bell is the subsidiary of AT&T serving the state of Michigan. Following the Bell System divestiture on January 8, 1984, the company became a subsidiary of Ameritech, the Regional Bell operating company that served the midwestern United St ...

Wisconsin Bell Wisconsin Bell, Inc. (known as Wisconsin Telephone Co. before 1984) is the name of the Bell Operating Company serving Wisconsin. It is owned by AT&T through AT&T Teleholdings, originally known as Ameritech. Their headquarters is at 722 North Broa ...

Ohio Bell The Ohio Bell Telephone Company, now doing business as AT&T Ohio, is the Bell Operating Company serving most of Ohio and parts of West Virginia. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T. Its headquarters is the Ohio Bell Building at 750 Huron Roa ...

, and

Indiana Bell Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th sta ...

, which provides

landline A landline (land line, land-line, main line, home phone, fixed-line, and wireline) is a telephone connection that uses metal wires or optical fiber telephone line for transmission, as distinguished from a mobile cellular network, which uses ...

service to the

Great Lakes The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lakes ...

region. From around 1986,

Cincinnati Bell Cincinnati Bell, doing business as Altafiber (typeset as altafiber), is a regional telecommunications service provider based in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. It provides landline telephone, fiber-optic Internet, and IPTV services through its s ...

held a 45% stake in the company. Originally named Ameritech Mobile Communications, it later became known as Ameritech Cellular. Before the SBC Merger Ameritech sold some of its interests to GTE dba Verizon. Following the

SBC Communications The history of AT&T dates back to the invention of the telephone. The Bell Telephone Company was established in 1877 by Alexander Graham Bell, who obtained the first US patent for the telephone, and his father-in-law, Gardiner Greene Hubbard. Bell ...

merger, Ameritech's wireless network was integrated and added to SBC's Wireless network. Originally Ameritech used

CDMA Code-division multiple access (CDMA) is a channel access method used by various radio communication technologies. CDMA is an example of multiple access, where several transmitters can send information simultaneously over a single communication ...

as its network technology choice, but then converted to TDMA to be compatible with SBC's other wireless networks that were mostly using TDMA. During the

merger its First and Original network in Chicago was sold to GTE (which later became

Verizon Wireless Verizon is an American wireless network operator that previously operated as a separate division of Verizon Communications under the name Verizon Wireless. In a 2019 reorganization, Verizon moved the wireless products and services into the divi ...

). Ameritech Mobile Communications exists today as Ameritech Mobile Communications, LLC d/b/a AT&T Mobility. The Guinness Records claims "the Most durable mobile phone number (cellular phone number) David Contorno, of

Lemont, Illinois Lemont is a village located in Cook, DuPage, and Will counties in the U.S. state of Illinois, and is a south-west suburb of Chicago. The population was 17,629 as of the 2020 census. The village is situated on a hillside along the south banks o ...

, has owned and used the same mobile telephone number since 2 August 1985. His first mobile phone was an Ameritech AC140 and his carrier has been Ameritech Mobile Communications ever since."

References

External links

Archive of Ameritech Cellular Intercept Messages
{{AT&T AT&T subsidiaries 1983 establishments in Illinois