Mama Bell

Mama Bell

A jocular name for AT&T (American Telephone and Telegraph Corporation), originally a subsidiary of the Bell Telephone Company, especially in reference to its monopoly of phone services across the United States and Canada up until 1981. (Its regional subsidiaries, which it was required to divest in 1982 as the result of an antitrust lawsuit, were known as "Baby Bells.") My dad worked for Mama Bell for nearly 40 years as an engineer. If the merger goes through, Mama Bell will once again control nearly all of the telephone operations across the entire country. There were few complaints from people working within the company, though, especially at the corporate level—Mama Bell certainly took care of her own.
See also: bell, mama
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
See also:
  • Ma Bell
  • troll booth
  • have a monopoly on (something)
  • monopoly
  • rain stopped play
  • what's yours is mine, and what's mine is mine
  • sipster
  • the old ball and chain
  • come to papa
References in periodicals archive
and it's really hard to remember that mama bell whose name you called as you awaited the transition would be kind enough to put something in front of you that made sense for you to eat though by the time you talked about it she was one of the women in your life who unqualifiedly loved you though you were always smart enough to know that no one would unqualifiedly love you if they knew who you were
The train to Knoxville