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'Cincinnati Bell' is the dominant telephone company for Cincinnati, Ohio and its nearby suburbs in Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky. The parent company is named 'Cincinnati Bell Inc.' Its incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) subsidiary uses the name 'Cincinnati Bell Telephone Company LLC', and Cincinnati Bell Wireless provides mobile phone services. Other subsidiaries handle services such as payphones and long distance. Cincinnati Bell's stock is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange with the stock symbol 'CBB'.

Contents

History

Wireless service

Internet access

See also

References

External links

History

Cincinnati Bell started out as the 'City and Suburban Telegraph Company' and was providing telegraph lines between homes and businesses in 1873, three years before the invention of the telephone. In 1878, it gained exclusive rights to the Bell franchise within a 25 mile (40 km) radius of Cincinnati; it has substantially the same ILEC territory today: small yet straddling a 3-state area.
Cincinnati Bell and Southern New England Telephone were the only two companies in the old Bell System that were owned independently of AT&T (AT&T held only minority interests in these two companies); therefore, neither is considered a Regional Bell operating company (RBOC). AT&T held 27.8% interest in Cincinnati Bell before 1984. In 1998, SNET was bought by SBC, an RBOC, but Cincinnati Bell has remained independent.

During the 1990s, Cincinnati Bell acquired a nationwide transmission network formerly known as IXC Communications and changed its corporate name to "Broadwing Communications," although the local telephone operations continued to operate under their traditional name. In the 2000s, the holding company divested the long-distance operation as Broadwing Corporation and changed its name back to Cincinnati Bell.
Cincinnati Bell is one of three American companies that continue to actively promote itself under the "Bell" name. As of August 2006, Cincinnati Bell has ceased all public usage of the last Bell logo, designed in 1969 by Saul Bass, simply opting to use a shadowed version of its stylized corporate name on its website. The company's telephone directories had already removed the Bell logo from its covers for some time.
The newsmagazine ''60 Minutes'' reported in 1989 that Cincinnati Bell cooperated with local police to wiretap local residents in search of alleged communist or criminal activity from 1972 to 1984.^[1] In a move widely criticized by consumer advocates, Cincinnati Bell was also the first phone company in Ohio to take advantage of a 2005 state law that lets phone companies raise rates without having to gain approval from state regulators.
Cincinnati Bell's original headquarters, the Cincinnati and Suburban Telephone Company Building, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Wireless service

Cincinnati Bell Wireless (CBW) offers GSM wireless service in southeastern Indiana, southwestern Ohio, and northwestern Kentucky. The company is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cincinnati Bell.
CBW started as a joint venture with AT&T Wireless. Originally, AT&T Wireless owned 20% of CBW. When AT&T Wireless was purchased by Cingular, control of the 20% stake passed to Cingular as well. On February 17, 2006, Cincinnati Bell took full control of CBW by purchasing Cingular's 20% ownership for $83 million. As a part of the deal, both companies (CBW, and AT&T Wireless/Cingular) secured lower roaming charges network on each others respective GSM networks.^[2]
An independent research provider tested Cincinnati Bell Wireless's service in Cincinnati and Dayton and found the company to have the best wireless network in 2005 and 2006. ^[3]

Internet access

Cincinnati Bell offers Internet access to customers in the Cincinnati service area. Cincinnati Bell's Fuse Internet Service provides dial-up access, while broadband access through ZoomTown ADSL service. ZoomTown customers still connect to the Internet through an Internet service provider. Typically, Zoomtown is used in conjunction with Cincinnati Bell's ISP, Fuse, although other local ISPs are available. ZoomTown's ADSL technology currently offers speeds of 5 Mbit/s downstream and 768 kbit/s upstream. ^[4] ZoomTown started service in 1999. Its primary competitor for broadband internet access is Time Warner's Road Runner cable Internet service. Cincinnati Bell also offers a service called ZoomTown Plus that bundles Internet access with news, reference, and entertainment content, provided though Synacor. ^[5]

See also

★ American Telephone & Telegraph

★ Road Runner (ISP)

★ Bell System

★ The break up of AT&T

★ Ohio Bell

References

1. Wiretapping
2. http://cingular.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=press_releases&item=442
3. http://www.cincinnatibell.com/consumer/wireless/rate_plans/best_network/
4. http://www.cincinnatibell.com/residential/internet/zoomtown/?t=4
5. http://www.synacor.com/news_press_releases.php?id=122

External links

★ Cincinnati Bell's corporate information site

★ Cincinnati Bell Wireless Official website

★ Cincinnati Bell Wireless coverage maps

★ ZoomTown High-Speed Internet Access

★ ZoomTown customer Web portal

★ ZoomTown Customer reviews at Broadband Reports