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| BASIC TELEPHONY |
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Invention of the telephone Although Alexander Graham Bell in credited for the invention of the telephone, legend tells that Elisha Grey applied for a telephone patent just a couple of hours after Bell. This was the year 1876. Once Bell patented the telephone, the first thing he did was to try to sell it to a telegraph company (Western Union). However, due to the novelty of the invention, Western Union did not consider that the telephone was a practical invention. Bell's second option was to find financial backers that would believe in his invention and form the Bell Telephone Company. The company was finally created on July 9, 1877. Almost one year later, it receive the license to provide telephone services in the United States. A few years later, in 1900, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) was created and became the parent company of the Bell System. While Bell was handling local telephone services, AT&T’s was created with the purpose to take charge of the long distance business branch of the industry and its licensees. After the Bell patents expired in 1893 and 1894, numerous other independent telephone companies started offering services to the public. Although there were over 6,000 independent companies, they mostly provided services in rural areas. Bell provided services in the larger metropolitan areas. Because the different telephone networks were not “inter-connected”, users had to have separate telephones to be connected to separate networks.Although the creation of the telecom industry started with Bell's invention, considered almost unimportant at the time, it helped shape the way e communicate today and became one of the biggest and fastest growing industries in history. Even the telecommunications structure implemented from the creation of AT&T remained a standard throughout the years, dividing services into local and long distance. For two local bell companies to connect, these must unavoidably do so through a long distance provider (carrier). Although the connection structures to transfer calls from one point to another are still the same, equipment, speed and quality have noticeably improved over the years and will continue to do so. Once the telecom industry bloomed, other companies appeared with the intention of competing with what until then was only Bell and AT&T. Independent companies appeared to provide services and even equipment (a whole industry in itself). As AT&T discovered that these smaller companies were becoming increasingly competitive, it started buying them out to alleviate competition and increase revenues. Eventually, the us government considered that AT&T was monopolizing the industry and started to intervene in order to establish a fairer competition between companies and created several telecom standards that are applied to this day. |
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The World of Communications
Copyright (C) 2006. All right reserved.