Ameritech Cellular

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Ameritech Cellular" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (March 2015) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Ameritech Mobile Communications, LLC

Company type	Holding of AT&T Mobility
Industry	Wireless Services
Founded	1984; 41 years ago (1984)
Defunct	2002; 23 years ago (2002)
Fate	Acquired By SBC Communications
Headquarters	Chicago, IL
Products	AMPS
Parent	Ameritech (1984-1999) SBC (1999-2000) AT&T Mobility (2000-present)
Website	att.com/wireless

Ameritech Mobile Communications, LLC was the first company in the United States to provide cellular mobile phone service to the general public. Cell service became publicly available in Chicago on October 13, 1983. The company was a division of Ameritech which, as of January 1, 1984, was the holding company of Illinois Bell, Michigan Bell, Wisconsin Bell, Ohio Bell, and Indiana Bell, which provide landline service to the Great Lakes region. From around 1986, Cincinnati Bell held a 45% stake in the company.^[1] Originally named Ameritech Mobile Communications, it later became known as Ameritech Cellular.

Following Ameritech's merger with SBC Corporation, Ameritech's wireless network was integrated with SBC's wireless network. Originally Ameritech used CDMA as its network technology choice, but then converted to TDMA to be compatible with SBC's other wireless networks that were mostly using TDMA. During the SBC merger its original network in Chicago was sold to GTE (which later became part of Verizon Wireless).