Motorola and the American Radio Telephone Service started Celluar One in 1977 to bring service to the Washington, D.C., Baltimore area in December 1983. Cellular One was originally the trade name of one of the first mobile telephone service providers. In July 1986, a 55 percent stake in Cellular One was sold to Southwestern Bell who later joined into a partnership with McCaw Communications and Vanguard Cellular Systems to create a unified cellular network. By 1995, they had over 5 million customers and served 69% of the US population. AT&T purchased McCaw Cellular in 1994 and then renamed the provider AT&T Wireless. Western Wireless joined the partnership in 1999, and in 2001, the Cellular One group name became the sole property of Western Wireless.
