Nevada Bell Telephone Company, originally Bell Telephone Company of Nevada, is a

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 ...

telephone provider and it was the

Bell System The Bell System was a system of telecommunication companies, led by the Bell Telephone Company and later by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), that dominated the telephone services industry in North America for over one hundr ...

's telephone provider in Nevada. It only provides telephone services to 30% of the state, essentially all of the state outside

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Veg ...

, where service is provided by

CenturyLink Lumen Technologies, Inc. (formerly CenturyLink) is an American telecommunications company headquartered in Monroe, Louisiana, that offers communications, network services, security, cloud solutions, voice, and managed services. The company is ...

. Nevada Bell spent nearly all of its history as a subsidiary of

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 ...

, which is the reason Nevada Bell was not listed in Judge Harold Greene's

Modification of Final Judgment In United States telecommunication law, the Modification of Final Judgment (MFJ) is the August 1982 consent decree concerning the American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T) and its subsidiaries. The terms required the Bell System divestiture & ...

, starting the breakup of AT&T.

History

Nevada Bell traces its history to 1906, when Pacific Telephone and Telegraph forerunner of Pacific Bell bought the Sunset Telephone and Telegraph Company, one of several early telephone companies in Nevada. In 1913, Pacific Telephone transferred its Nevada operations to the newly formed Bell Telephone Company of Nevada. After the 1984 breakup, its legal name was shortened to Nevada Bell (its popular name for the better part of its history), and it became an operating company of

Pacific Telesis Pacific Telesis Group was one of the seven Regional Bell Operating Companies, sometimes also referred to as "RBOCs" or "Baby Bells", created in 1983 in preparation of the breakup of AT&T as a holding company for Pacific Bell and Nevada Bell, Pa ...

alongside Pacific Bell.

Mergers

In 1997, Pacific Telesis Group 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 ...

. Although the Pacific Telesis corporate name disappeared fairly quickly, SBC continued to operate the local telephone companies separately under their original names. In September 2001, SBC rebranded the telephone company "SBC Nevada Bell". In late 2002, the Nevada Bell name disappeared altogether when SBC rebranded all of its operating companies as simply "SBC." Meanwhile, employees of SBC working in Nevada who support SBC's non-regulated services and/or services provided both within and outside Nevada 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 "Nevada Bell dba SBC Nevada", which was the SBC subsidiary that provided regulated local telephone services within the franchise territory in Nevada. On November 18, 2005, SBC completed its acquisition of AT&T Corp. to form AT&T Inc., at which point Nevada Bell began doing business as AT&T Nevada.

References

AT&T subsidiaries Bell System Companies based in Reno, Nevada Communications in Nevada Defunct telecommunications companies of the United States 1913 establishments in Nevada Telecommunications companies established in 1913 American companies established in 1913 {{US-telecom-company-stub