BellSouth Business Systems Inc history

BellSouth was formed in 1983 as part of the court-ordered breakup of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), at that time the world's largest corporation.

In 1984, the former AT&T agreed to divest its local telephone operations but retain its long distance, R&D and manufacturing arms.

BellSouth earned $1.42 billion in 1985.

BellSouth won a $55 million telephone-switch contract from the United States government in late 1987.

By 1988 BellSouth was the fastest growing regional holding company, with an impressive use of new technologies and services and the addition of 600,000 new telephone lines to the network every year.

In 1989 Fortune magazine labeled the company "the most admired utility" for these reasons.

By 1990 BellSouth had invested $550 million in overseas operations and was the only regional offering mobile communications on four continents.

In 1995 the company invested $500 million in a joint venture with Disney and two other partners to produce innovative entertainment programs carried by phone as well as cable lines.

Twelve years later, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 drove major changes in the competitive landscape.

In 1997, BellSouth got a new CEO, Duane Ackerman, who girded the company to face even more competition, as relaxed regulations finally permitted other phone companies to offer local phone service in BellSouth's territory.

Nevertheless, it continued to grow, both in revenues and services offered, with strong sales of its data, wireless, and regular phone services leading to an almost 40 percent earnings increase for the last quarter of 1998.

The acquisition of BellSouth in 2006 consolidated ownership of Cingular Wireless.