TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: Cincinnati Bell and SNET (was Cingular & at&t)

Re: Cincinnati Bell and SNET (was Cingular & at&t)

Brian Bebeau (bbebeau@computer.org)
Wed, 16 May 2007 10:31:02 -0400

John Mayson wrote:

> hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:

>> So Cincinnati Bell is not owned by one of the "big" regional baby
>> bells? Who is "Broadwing"?

> During the 90's Cincinnati Bell decided there was two things wrong
> with their name: "Cincinnati" and "Bell". It wasn't edgy enough. It
> merged the name of a bland Midwestern city with a word synonymous with
> the old telecom world. This was the 90's! We were hip! Cyberspace
> was the thing. So they changed the name. Cincinnati Bell had
> holdings and businesses outside of the Cincinnati area who did
> business as "Broadwing".

Hey! We're not *that* bland! Note that Cincinnati Bell did not buy
Broadwing to get into cyberspace. They already were there with
their fuse.net DSL offering (I tried to get it when it first came
out but I'm too far from the CO). In the late '90s, Cincinnati Bell
thought they couldn't grow if they didn't go national, so they
bought Broadwing. The holding company was called Broadwing, of which
Cincinnati Bell was a part (I still wrote checks to Cincinnati Bell).
A few years ago, they finally realized Broadwing was too much of a
financial drain on the company, and sold it off. They went back to
being known as Cincinnati Bell because it had good connotations in
people's minds.

Note also that Cincinnati Bell used to also own Convergys (it was
actually called Cincinnati Bell Information Systems when I worked
there in '96). That was spun off, too.

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