1. History
    Hawaiian Telcom and OnX acquisitions 

2. Telecommunications
    Landline service  Wireless telephony  Internet access  Fiber optics 

3. Retail stores

4. See also

5. References

6. External links

Cincinnati Bell is the dominant telephone company for Cincinnati, Ohio, its nearby suburbs, and the Dayton metropolitan area in the U.S. states of Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky. Through the holdings of its parent company Cincinnati Bell Inc. it is also the dominant provider for the State of Hawaii. Its incumbent local exchange carrier subsidiary uses the name Cincinnati Bell Telephone Company LLC. Other subsidiaries handle services such as IT Solutions and long distance calling.

History

Cincinnati Bell started out as the City and Suburban Telegraph Association 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—the first telephone exchange in Ohio and the tenth in the United States. It has substantially the same incumbent local exchange carrier territory today, straddling 2,400 square miles in three states. The name changed to Cincinnati and Suburban Bell Telephone Company in 1903. It was shortened to Cincinnati Bell in 1971.

Cincinnati Bell and Southern New England Telephone (SNET) were the only two companies in the old Bell System that operated independently because AT&T Corporation only owned minority stakes in the companies. Therefore, neither is considered a Regional Bell Operating Company (RBOC), AT&T was not obligated to dispose of their ownership stakes in the companies, and restrictions placed on the Baby Bells did not apply to these two companies. AT&T owned 32.6% of Cincinnati Bell until 1984, at which point the shares AT&T owned were placed into a trust and then sold.^[1] In 1998, SNET was bought by SBC Communications (Now the new AT&T), an RBOC, and in 2014 was sold to Frontier Communications, a company with no relation to the former Bell System; Cincinnati Bell, however, has remained independent.

In May 1999, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio awarded Cincinnati Bell Long Distance the right to offer local wireline telephone service in 55 counties outside its incumbent territory and the company began to resell business local phone service in these counties, in competition with incumbent carrier Ameritech.^[3][4]

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 2004, the holding company divested the long-distance operation as Broadwing Corporation and changed its name back to Cincinnati Bell.

In 2002, Cincinnati Bell sold Cincinnati Bell Directory, consisting of its directory operations, to Spectrum Equity. The resulting company is named CBD Media. The sale marked the first time a former Bell System-affiliated company had sold off its directory operations.

In 2003, when BellSouth exited the payphone market, some former BellSouth payphones in Kentucky were sold to Cincinnati Bell.

Cincinnati Bell is the only American Bell System company that continues to publicly do business under the "Bell" name.^[5] In July 2006, Cincinnati Bell removed the final iteration of the Bell logo—designed in 1969 by Saul Bass—from most of its corporate branding, leaving only a stylized wordmark. However, the company continued to use the Bell logo in promotional materials for residential landline and long-distance service^[6] until another it adopted a new logo in 2016. (BellSouth was the last remaining Baby Bell to still use the Bell logo, but BellSouth was acquired by AT&T later that year, with the BellSouth brand being retired in 2007.)

Cincinnati Bell's original headquarters, the Cincinnati and Suburban Telephone Company Building, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Hawaiian Telcom and OnX acquisitions

On July 10, 2017, Cincinnati Bell announced it would acquire Hawaiian Telcom Holdco, Inc., parent of local telephone company Hawaiian Telcom for $650 million and Toronto-based OnX Enterprise Solutions for $201 million.^[7] With the completion of the Hawaiian Telcom acquisition, the size of Cincinnati Bell's fiber network is expected to exceed 14,000 fiber route miles.^[8]

Telecommunications

Landline service

Cincinnati Bell provides landline PSTN local and long-distance calling. In recent years, the company has seen subscriptions to these traditional services decline due to competition from cable and wireless providers.^[9]

Wireless telephony

From 1998 until 2015, Cincinnati Bell Wireless (CBW) offered GSM wireless service in southeastern Indiana, southwestern Ohio, and northwestern Kentucky. It was sold at Best Buy, Circuit City (until 2009), Office Depot, and participating Kroger locations. It offered HSPA+^[10] service in most of Hamilton County, Ohio, and parts of surrounding counties; EDGE^[11] service in Dayton and Oxford; and GSM service elsewhere. The local coverage area extended north to Celina and Urbana, east to Hillsboro, south to Corinth and Warsaw, and west to Batesville.^[12] Cincinnati Bell's prepaid mobile phone products were sold under same i-wireless brand as an unrelated service by locally based Kroger.^[13]

Cincinnati Bell made its first foray into wireless telephony around 1986, when it acquired a 45% stake in Ameritech Cellular. On February 2, 1998, Cincinnati Bell acquired 80% of AT&T Wireless Services's new Cincinnati-Dayton PCS network for over $100 million. Cincinnati Bell's subsidiary Cincinnati Bell Wireless was responsible for marketing and sales, while AT&T Wireless handled technical operations for the joint venture. Wireless service began by June in Cincinnati and by September in Dayton, eventually covering a 21-county area.^[14][15][16] When AT&T Wireless was purchased by Cingular, now known as AT&T Mobility, control of its 20% stake also passed to Cingular. On February 17, 2006, Cincinnati Bell took full control of CBW by purchasing Cingular's stake for $83 million. As a part of the deal, Cincinnati Bell and Cingular secured lower roaming charges on each other's respective GSM networks.^[17]

On April 7, 2014, Cincinnati Bell announced plans to sell its wireless spectrum and other assets to Verizon Wireless, as part of a planned emphasis on enterprise and entertainment services such as FiOptics.^[5][18] Cincinnati Bell Wireless ended service on February 28, 2015. The company's retail locations began selling Verizon products.^[19]

Internet access

Cincinnati Bell offers Internet access to customers in its service area. Its primary competitor for broadband Internet access is Charter Spectrum Internet.

Fiber optics

In late 2009, Cincinnati Bell started offering a fiber-optic communications (Internet, telephone, and IPTV) service called FiOptics, similar to the U-verse service offered by AT&T and the FiOS service offered by Verizon Communications.^[20] Cincinnati Bell's FiOptics provides Internet at speeds from 5 Mbit/s up to 1 Gbit/s to over 500,000 homes in the Cincinnati metropolitan area and its nearby suburbs. The availability is limited to areas currently wired for FiOptics, and other FiOptics services are not required. In areas now covered by FiOptics, Cincinnati Bell no longer offers ADSL-only speeds greater than 5 Mbit/s.

Retail stores

Cincinnati Bell originally operated a chain of Cincinnati Bell Phone Center locations until 1992, when it sold the retail chain to AT&T.^[21] It reentered the retail space in 1998 with three Store@Cincinnati Bell retail locations.^[15][14] {{As of|2018}}, the company operates nine Cincinnati Bell Stores.^[22]

See also

• American Telephone & Telegraph
• Bell System
• Bell System divestiture
• Ohio Bell

References

External links

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20040803004224/http://www.cincinnatibell.com/corporate/ Cincinnati Bell's corporate information site]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20060826201147/http://www.cincinnatibell.com/consumer/wireless/coverage/ Former Cincinnati Bell Wireless coverage maps]
• ZoomTown customer Web portal
• ZoomTown Customer reviews at Broadband Reports
• ZoomTown/Fuse/Cincinnati Bell ISP Class Action Lawsuit Info

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