 | |
 Altafiber's headquarters | |
| Altafiber | |
| Company type | Subsidiary |
| Industry | Telecommunications |
| Founded | 1873; 152 years ago (1873) |
| Headquarters | Cincinnati, Ohio, United States |
Area served | Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Hawaii |
Key people | |
| Products | Local telephone service,IPTVinternet |
| Revenue |  US$1.599 billion (2020) |
 US$66.0 million (2020) | |
| -US$55.6 million (2020) | |
| Total assets | US$2.668 billion (2020) |
| Total equity | US$191.1 million (2020) |
Number of employees | 5,350 (2023) |
| Parent | Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets |
| Subsidiaries |
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| Website | www |
| Footnotes / references [2] | |
Cincinnati Bell, Inc., doing business asAltafiber,[3] is a regionaltelecommunications service provider based inCincinnati,Ohio, United States. It provideslandline telephone,fiber-optic Internet, andIPTV services through itssubsidiariesAltafiber Home Phone andHawaiian Telcom, which are theincumbent local exchange carriers for theGreater Cincinnati metropolitan area (aka "The Tri-State") andHawaii. Other subsidiaries provide enterpriseinformation technology services andlong distance calling.
Cincinnati Bell was founded in 1873 as atelegraph company and for much of its history was aBell System franchisee. In the 1990s, Cincinnati Bell expanded intoInternet access andmobile phone services. The company divested its mobile phone service in 2014 to focus on enterprise and fiber-optic services.[4] It was acquired in September 2021 byMacquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets, and began doing business as Altafiber in March 2022.[5][6]
Cincinnati Bell was founded as theCity and Suburban Telegraph Association on July 5, 1873. Founder Charles Kilgour had run theCincinnati Street Railway with his brother John but became homebound after an accident and began running his business from home viatelegraph. The City and Suburban Telegraph Association ran telegraph lines between homes and businesses beginning in 1873, three years before the invention of thetelephone. In 1878, it gained exclusive rights to theBell franchise within a 25-mile (40 km) radius of Cincinnati, becoming the first telephone exchange in Ohio and the tenth in the United States. It has substantially the same three-stateincumbent local exchange carrier territory today. On August 21, 1877, it signed its first telephone customer, the Cincinnati Gas-Light and Coke Company (later known asCincinnati Gas and Electric).[7][8]
The company was renamedCincinnati and Suburban Bell Telephone Company in 1903.
From 1930 to 1952, the company converted its exchanges from staffed switchboards todial service. Seven-digit dialing was introduced in 1962.[7] In 1968, electromechanical switching equipment was replaced by one of the firstelectronic switching systems.[8] The company formally simplified its name to Cincinnati Bell in 1971.
In May 1999, thePublic 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 carrierAmeritech.[9][10]
During the 1990s, Cincinnati Bell acquired a nationwide transmission network formerly known asIXC Communications and changed its corporate name to "Broadwing Communications", although the local telephone operations continued to operate under the traditional Cincinnati Bell name. The acquisition fell short of expectations due to intense competition and lackluster demand and left Broadwing with over $2 billion in debt.[11] In 2004, the holding company divested the long-distance operation asBroadwing 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 namedCBD Media. The sale marked the first time a formerBell System-affiliated company had sold off its directory operations. In 2003, whenBellSouth exited the payphone market, some former BellSouth payphones in Kentucky were sold to Cincinnati Bell.
In 2017, Cincinnati Bell acquiredToronto-basedOnX Enterprise Solutions for $201 million.[12][1] On July 2, 2018, Cincinnati Bell acquiredHawaiian Telcom Holdco, Inc., parent of local telephone company Hawaiian Telcom, for $650 million.[13] The Hawaiian Telcom acquisition grew Cincinnati Bell's fiber network to over 14,000 route miles (23,000 km).[14]
In September 2021, Cincinnati Bell was acquired byMacquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets.[5]
On March 2, 2022, shortly after its acquisition by Macquarie, the company announced it would begindoing business as "Altafiber". The company's legal name, Cincinnati Bell Inc., was not immediately affected.[6]
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Cincinnati Bell andSouthern New England Telephone (SNET) were the only two companies in the oldBell System in whichAT&T Corporation only owned minority stakes. Therefore, neither was considered aRegional Bell Operating Company (RBOC) for regulatory purposes, restrictions placed on the Baby Bells did not apply to these two companies, and AT&T was not obligated to dispose of their ownership stakes in the 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.[16]
Cincinnati Bell was, from 2006 to 2022, the only former Bell System company that continued to publicly do business under the "Bell" name.[4][6] In July 2006, Cincinnati Bell removed the final iteration of the Bell logo—designed in 1969 bySaul 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[17] until it adopted a new logo in 2016.
Cincinnati Bell's conventional telecommunications services are concentrated in markets where its subsidiaries have historically enjoyedincumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) status. Since the 1870s, Cincinnati Bell Telephone has been the ILEC within a radius of approximately 25 miles (40 km) from downtownCincinnati. As of 2019[update], the three-state territory consists of:
Beyond its ILEC territory, Cincinnati Bell Telephone additionally servesMason,Lebanon, and theDayton metropolitan area through its subsidiary Cincinnati Bell Extended Territories.Hawaiian Telcom, which Cincinnati Bell acquired in 2018, is the ILEC for the entire state ofHawaii.[1]
OnX provides enterprise IT solutions in the United States, Canada, and United Kingdom.[1]
Cincinnati Bell has historically focused on traditional landline service, but in recent decades it has expanded into adjacent communications and entertainment services. As of 2017[update], legacy voice service makes up only a quarter of the company's revenue.[21]
Cincinnati Bell provideslandlinePSTN local andlong-distance calling. In recent years,[when?] the company has seen subscriptions to these traditional services decline due to competition from cable and wireless providers.[22][needs update]
Cincinnati Bell offers Internet access to customers in its service area. Its primary competitor for broadband Internet access isCharterSpectrum Internet.
In late 2009, Cincinnati Bell started offering afiber-optic communications (Internet, telephone, andIPTV) service called Fioptics, similar to theU-verse service offered byAT&T and theFiOS service offered byVerizon Communications.[23] Cincinnati Bell's Fioptics provides Internet at speeds from 5 Mbit/s up to 2 Gbit/s to over 500,000 homes in theCincinnati metropolitan area. The availability is limited to areas 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.
As of 2019[update], Cincinnati Bell's fiber optic network extends nearly 16,500 route miles (26,600 km).
In 2011, Cincinnati Bell became the first telecommunications company to also provide retail energy service.[24] Through a partnership withViridian Energy, Cincinnati Bell Energy competes with several other alternativeelectricity retailers for the power generation portion of customers' electricity bills.[22] The subsidiary advertises that its service is entirely sourced fromNational Wind.[25]
From 1998 until 2015,Cincinnati Bell Wireless (CBW) offeredGSMwireless service in southeasternIndiana, southwesternOhio, and northwesternKentucky. It was sold atBest Buy,Circuit City (until 2009),Office Depot, and participatingKroger locations. It offeredHSPA+[26] service in most ofHamilton County, Ohio, and parts of surrounding counties;EDGE[27] service inDayton andOxford; andGSM service elsewhere. The local coverage area extended north toCelina andUrbana, east toHillsboro, south toCorinth andWarsaw, and west toBatesville.[28] Cincinnati Bell'sprepaid mobile phone products were sold under the samei-wireless brand as anunrelated service by locally basedKroger.[29]
Cincinnati Bell made its first foray into wireless telephony around 1986, when it acquired a 45% stake inAmeritech Cellular. On February 2, 1998, Cincinnati Bell acquired 80% ofAT&T Wireless Services's new Cincinnati-DaytonPCS 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.[30][31][32] When AT&T Wireless was purchased by Cingular, now known asAT&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 lowerroaming charges on each other's respective GSM networks.[33]
On April 7, 2014, Cincinnati Bell announced plans to sell its wireless spectrum and other assets toVerizon Wireless, as part of a planned emphasis on enterprise and entertainment services such as Fioptics.[4][34] Cincinnati Bell Wireless ended service on February 28, 2015, and the company's retail locations began selling Verizon products.[35]
Like otherBell System–affiliated companies, Cincinnati Bell published a series of localtelephone directories, beginning in 1879.[7] In 2002, it spun off these operations asCBD Media.
Cincinnati Bell originally operated a chain of Cincinnati Bell Phone Center locations until 1992, when it sold the retail chain toAT&T.[36] It reentered the retail space in 1998 with three Store@Cincinnati Bell retail locations.[31][30] As of 2018[update], the company operates nine Cincinnati Bell Stores.[37]
Cincinnati Bell's headquarters are located in the Atrium Two building on 4th Street inDowntown Cincinnati.[38][39]
The company's former headquarters andtelephone exchange on 7th Street is known as theCincinnati and Suburban Telephone Company Building. It was added to theNational Register of Historic Places in 1995. Next door is adata center operated byCyrusOne, a former Cincinnati Bell subsidiary.[40] It originally opened in 1975 as Cincinnati Bell's central Switching Center.[8]
Cincinnati Bell owns the naming rights to theCincinnati Bell Connector streetcar line that traverses the downtown area. In August 2016, Cincinnati Bell paid $3.4 million to rename the line for 10 years.[41] From 2007 to 2014 Cincinnati Bell also sponsored the annualCincinnati Bell/WEBN Riverfest, one of the largest fireworks displays in the Midwest.[42]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)Bell is the last of its breed, the only surviving regional Bell company still bearing the monicker of the telephone's inventor.
Cincinnati Bell made its long-awaited entry into wireless communications Tuesday, acquiring 80 percent of AT&T Wireless Services' new Cincinnati-Dayton network for more than $100 million. ... Under the agreement, Cincinnati Bell Wireless will handle the business side of the venture, and AT&T Wireless will concentrate on the technical side of the digital Personal Communications Service (PCS) network. AT&T Wireless is building the network over 21 counties, stretching from Springfield south to the Interstate 75-71 split in Northern Kentucky and from Clermont County on the east to Lawrenceburg on the west.
Cincinnati Bell Inc. agreed to sell its telephone equipment leasing and Phone Center Store business to AT&T Co. AT&T will provide telephone lease service to Cincinnati Bell's residential lease customers and operate AT&T Phone Centers in the Cincinnati and northern Kentucky region beginning Feb 1, 1993.
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