Pacific Telesis Group was one of the seven

Regional Bell Operating Companies The Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOC) are the result of '' United States v. AT&T'', the U.S. Department of Justice antitrust suit against the former American Telephone & Telegraph Company (later known as AT&T Corp.). On January 8, 1 ...

, sometimes also referred to as "RBOCs" or "Baby Bells", created in 1983 in preparation of the breakup of

AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile tel ...

as a holding company for

Pacific Bell The Pacific Bell Telephone Company (Pacific Bell or Pac Bell) is a telephone company that provides telephone service in California. The company is owned by AT&T through AT&T Teleholdings, and, though separate, is now marketed as “AT&T”. The ...

and

Nevada Bell Nevada Bell Telephone Company, originally Bell Telephone Company of Nevada, is a Nevada telephone provider and it was the Bell System's telephone provider in Nevada. It only provides telephone services to 30% of the state, essentially all of the ...

, Pacific Telesis International and several other non-regulated companies including PacTel Mobile Services and PacTel InfoSystems. It was acquired by

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 ...

in 1997. Pacific Telesis Group was headquartered in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

and incorporated in

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...

Nicknames

Pacific Telesis is more commonly known as "PacTel." Prior to the January 1, 1984, breakup of the Bell System, the corporate name of its principal subsidiary Pacific Bell was The Pacific Telephone & Telegraph Company, which had also been referred to as "PacTel." After the corporate name change, Pacific Bell was commonly known as "PacBell." The red and white star trademarked logo was referred to by company employees as the "splat" or more formally as the "access symbol" after the similar star key on a telephone keypad.

Branded products

Pacific Telesis licensed rights to its name and the Bell name to Vodavi, who sold consumer telephones under the "PacTel" name. Vodavi manufactured PacTel telephones in

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

to "Bell Specifications". Pacific Telesis later licensed the Pacific Bell name to

Thomson Consumer Electronics Vantiva SA, formerly Technicolor SA, Thomson SARL, and Thomson Multimedia, is a French multinational corporation that provides creative services and technology products for the communication, media and entertainment industries. Vantiva's headq ...

, who also produced telephone equipment for GE.

Spinoffs

The cellular and paging unit of Pacific Telesis, PacTel Cellular, was spun off in 1994 into a new company called

AirTouch Communications AirTouch Communications was an American wireless telephone service provider, created as a spin-off on Pacific Telesis on April 1, 1994. Its headquarters were in One California in the Financial District, San Francisco, California. After a serie ...

(AirTouch), leaving Pacific Telesis with only the landline telephone company. Senior Pacific Telesis management moved to the new company, thus leaving a new corporate culture to run the old Pacific Telesis. In 1999, Airtouch merged with Britain's

Vodafone Vodafone Group Public limited company, plc () is a British Multinational corporation, multinational Telephone company, telecommunications company. Its registered office and Headquarters, global headquarters are in Newbury, Berkshire, England. It ...

to become Vodafone Airtouch. In 2000, its U.S. wireless assets were merged with those of

Bell Atlantic Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas in ...

to form the joint venture

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 ...

. Later, when

GSM The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a standard developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) to describe the protocols for second-generation ( 2G) digital cellular networks used by mobile devices such ...

technology became available, Pacific Bell Mobile Services was re-created, debuting in 1996 at the

Republican National Convention The Republican National Convention (RNC) is a series of presidential nominating conventions held every four years since 1856 by the United States Republican Party. They are administered by the Republican National Committee. The goal of the Repu ...

San Diego, California San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United States ...

and being introduced to the public in 1997. After its public launch, the wireless division was renamed Pacific Bell Wireless and remained as such until the merger with SBC.

Mergers

In 1997, Pacific Telesis Group was acquired by

, and although the Pacific Telesis Group corporate name disappeared fairly quickly, SBC continued to operate the Pacific Bell and Nevada Bell local telephone companies separately under their original names. In September 2001, SBC renamed the telephone companies "SBC Pacific Bell" and "SBC Nevada Bell". In late 2002, the companies were rebranded again as simply "SBC". Meanwhile, employees of SBC working in California and Nevada who supported 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")", and "Nevada Bell dba SBC Nevada", which were the SBC subsidiaries that provided regulated local telephone services within the franchise territory in California and Nevada. On November 18, 2005, SBC completed its acquisition of AT&T Corp. to form AT&T Inc. Nevada and Pacific Bells are now known as Pacific Bell Telephone Company

d/b/a A trade name, trading name, or business name, is a pseudonym used by companies that do not operate under their registered company name. The term for this type of alternative name is a "fictitious" business name. Registering the fictitious name w ...

AT&T California and Nevada Bell Telephone Company d/b/a AT&T Nevada. Pacific Telesis' companies as a whole business are known as AT&T West. In 2006, the company was dissolved into

AT&T Teleholdings 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 is the current name of the former

Baby Bell The Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOC) are the result of '' United States v. AT&T'', the U.S. Department of Justice antitrust suit against the former American Telephone & Telegraph Company (later known as AT&T Corp.). On January 8, 1 ...

Ameritech.

References

{{Telecommunications AT&T subsidiaries Bell System Defunct telecommunications companies of the United States Communications in California Companies based in San Francisco Defunct companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area American companies established in 1983 Telecommunications companies established in 1983 Telecommunications companies disestablished in 2006 1983 establishments in California 2006 disestablishments in California 1997 mergers and acquisitions