Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Any of the regional telephone companies created in 1984 when AT&T was ordered to divest itself of its local telephone service operations.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun US, informal Any of the Regional Bell Operating Companies resulting from the
division of AT&T Corporation into a number of smaller companies in the 1980s as part of anantitrust agreement.
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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The former Baby Bell, which built itself up through a decade of acquisitions into the country's largest telecommunications company, was planning to buy T-Mobile USA, a deal that would test its skilled regulatory team in Washington.
AT&T Digs In for a D.C. Fight Shayndi Raice 2011
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It's ironic that at a telephone company someone can talk about being entrepreneurial, but we were starting our own Baby Bell.
Restructuring expertise opens many doors Post 2010
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Qwest used its high stock price to buy US West, a Baby Bell.
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That if you can get a high-enough stock price and access to new technology, being a newbie can be lots more fun than being an old incumbent company like a Baby Bell, AT&T or MCI.
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NynexTwo weeks ago the Baby Bell agreed to pump a whopping $1.2 billion into "Roseanne's" corporate parent, Viacom, which is trying to purchase Paramount.
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He says he was approached last week after the merger news by a Baby Bell representative who "talked about an offer so inadequate it's embarrassing."
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USWest will take a particular interest; some months ago the Baby Bell and its strategic partner Time Warner talked with founder Charles Dolan about selling his company.
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It may also bring down long-distance rates: if regulators decide that local phone markets are fully open (because AT&T will offer local service to TCI's cable subscribers), they're likely to allow the five Baby Bell phone companies to start offering long-distance service.
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With last week's announcement of their proposed $22 billion merger, John C. Malone, the cable king, and Raymond W. Smith, head of the most aggressive Baby Bell, joined that pantheon of achievement and controversy.
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It seemed focused on the good old days, before the 1984 breakup that separated it from the Baby Bell local phone companies.
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