BellSouth - Wikipedia

BellSouth, LLC (stylized as BELLSOUTH and formerly known as BellSouth Corporation) was an American telecommunications holding company based in Atlanta, Georgia. BellSouth was one of the seven original Regional Bell Operating Companies after the U.S. Department of Justice forced the American Telephone & Telegraph Company to divest itself of its regional telephone companies on January 1, 1984.

In a merger announced on March 5, 2006, and executed on December 29, 2006, AT&T Inc. (originally SBC Communications) acquired BellSouth for approximately $86 billion (1.325 shares of AT&T for each share of BellSouth).[ 3] The merger also consolidated ownership of Cingular Wireless and Yellowpages.com, both of which were joint ventures between BellSouth and AT&T.[ 4] With the merger completed, wireless services previously offered by Cingular Wireless were then offered under the AT&T name, and BellSouth Telecommunications (a subsidiary of a Bell Operating Company) began doing business as AT&T Southeast.[ 4]

BellSouth was the last of the Regional Bell Operating Companies to keep its original corporate name after the 1984 AT&T breakup, as well as the last one to retain the Bell logo as part of its main corporate identity.

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