US West

U S West, Inc. was one of seven Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs, also referred to as "Baby Bells"), created in 1983 under the Modification of Final Judgement (United States v. Western Electric Co., Inc. 552 Fed. Supp. 131), a case related to the antitrust breakup of AT&T. U S West provided local telephone and intraLATA long-distance services, data transmission services, cable television services, wireless communications services and related telecommunications products to defined areas in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. U S West was a public company traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "USW" with headquarters at 1801 California Street in Denver, Colorado.

Until 1990, U S West was a holding company with three Bell Operating Companies: Mountain States Telephone & Telegraph (or Mountain Bell, headquartered in Denver, Colorado); Northwestern Bell, then headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska; and Pacific Northwest Bell, then headquartered in Seattle, Washington. In 1988, the three companies began doing business under the U S West Communications name. On January 1, 1991, Northwestern Bell and Pacific Northwest Bell were legally merged into Mountain Bell which was renamed U S West Communications, Inc. U S West was the first RBOC to consolidate its

Accomplishments

US West became a pioneer in the introduction and rapid system-wide implementation of telephone technologies designed by Bellcore (now iconectiv) in the 1980s and 1990s. Their lead in this push became one that many other Regional Bell Operating Companies had to scramble to keep up with.

US West's success in this endeavor was for multiple reasons which included their then-innovative use of "test-markets" for staggered roll-outs of new calling features in middle-sized cities such as Boise, Idaho; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Phoenix, Arizona before releasing them on a wider scale (it was the first communications provider to use this strategy called beta-testing, a term used for many years in the software development industry). Their geographic presence featured telephone switching equipment that had been constructed fairly recent to the time frame, thereby requiring fewer upgrades. Their service area was also experiencing population growth at a tremendous rate, tripling its subscriber-base in a short time and increasing revenues.

US West also had ownership in the cable industry with its 1994 purchase of Atlanta-based Wometco and GTC cable operations and the subsequent purchase of Continental Cablevision, creating MediaOne Group Inc. MediaOne, along with several ancillary businesses, was spun off as a separate company in 1998 from the traditional phone operations to form MediaOne Group. US West also participated in a joint venture agreement with Time Warner Cable to form Time Warner Communications (later known as TW Telecom) in 1993- it also purchased a 26% stake in Time Warner Entertainment's entertainment operations including Warner Bros. and HBO, which was passed to MediaOne, AT&T, and finally Comcast. Comcast sold the stake back to Time Warner Inc. in 2003.

US West Communications was the first local telephone company to offer Caller ID service in 1991, nearly four years before any other local telco could do so. They were the first U.S. telco to upgrade their PSTN to electronic switching before 1990 and they were the first to offer residential and business ISDN and later, DSL services to their customers by 1997.

As a result of its rapid "bring-to-market" abilities and continued success in technological advancements, the company adopted the slogan "Life's better here." developed by ad agency NW Ayer.

US West was one of the first companies in the United States to officially recognize and support its gay and lesbian employees. The Eagles, an employee resource group for gay and lesbian US West employees, was recognized in 1989. It had chapters in seven US states by 1990.[4]

type	Public
predecessor	AT&T Corporation Northwestern Bell, Mountain Bell & Pacific Northwest Bell
successor	Qwest
defunct	June 30, 2000
fate	Merged
area served	14 western states
industry	Telecommunications
parent	AT&T (1983)
divisions	Consumer Business and Government Services Network Small Business Wholesale
subsid	U S West Communications U S West Dex U S West Information Technologies U S West Wireless Time Warner Communications Time Warner Entertainment (26% stake)
foundation	1983
location city	Denver, Colorado
location country	United States

Accomplishments

Criticisms

Merger with Qwest

External links

References