It provides landline telephone, fiber-optic Internet, and IPTV services through its subsidiaries Altafiber Home Phone and Hawaiian Telcom, which are the incumbent local exchange carriers for the Greater Cincinnati metropolitan area (aka "The Tri-State") and Hawaii.

[4] It was acquired in September 2021 by Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets, and began doing business as Altafiber in March 2022.

In 1878, it gained exclusive rights to the Bell franchise within a 25-mile (40 km) radius of Cincinnati, becoming the first telephone exchange in Ohio and the tenth in the United States.

In May 1999, the Public 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 carrier Ameritech.

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 as Broadwing Corporation and changed its name back to Cincinnati Bell.

[13] The Hawaiian Telcom acquisition grew Cincinnati Bell's fiber network to over 14,000 route miles (23,000 km).

Cincinnati Bell's conventional telecommunications services are concentrated in markets where its subsidiaries have historically enjoyed incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) status.

the company has seen subscriptions to these traditional services decline due to competition from cable and wireless providers.

In areas now covered by Fioptics, Cincinnati Bell no longer offers ADSL-only speeds greater than 5 Mbit/s.

The local coverage area extended north to Celina and Urbana, east to Hillsboro, south to Corinth and Warsaw, and west to Batesville.

[28] Cincinnati Bell's prepaid mobile phone products were sold under the same i-wireless brand as an unrelated service by locally based Kroger.

[29] Cincinnati Bell made its first foray into wireless telephony around 1986, when it acquired a 45% stake in Ameritech Cellular.

On February 2, 1998, Cincinnati Bell acquired 80% of AT&T Wireless Services's new Cincinnati-Dayton PCS network for over $100 million.

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 lower roaming charges on each other's respective GSM networks.

[4][34] Cincinnati Bell Wireless ended service on February 28, 2015, and the company's retail locations began selling Verizon products.