AT&T Inc. resulted from SBC Communications’ 2005 acquisition of its former parent, AT&T Corporation.
The original American Telephone and Telegraph Company was broken up in 1984 after an antitrust case. One successor, Southwestern Bell Corporation, controlled telephone operations in several central and southwestern states and later changed its name to SBC Communications.
SBC acquired the old AT&T Corporation in 2005 for about $16 billion and adopted the more famous AT&T name. The transaction reunited the AT&T brand with a company descended from the original Bell System. In 2006, the enlarged company also acquired BellSouth, gaining full control of Cingular Wireless, which became AT&T Mobility.
The wording can cause confusion because SBC was technically the acquiring company, even though the combined business used AT&T’s name. This was not the same event as the 1999 merger of SBC and Ameritech, nor the 2000 Bell Atlantic–GTE deal that created Verizon.