AT&T

AT&T (American Telephone and Telegraph Company), an American telecommunications company. Founded in 1885 by inventor A. G. Bell as a subsidiary of the Bell Telephone Company (founded 1877) to build long-distance telephone lines. In 1899, AT&T became the parent company of Bell's entire telecommunications holdings. One of the largest communication service providers in the world. Since 2008, the company's headquarters have been located in Dallas (Texas).

In 1876, an American engineer of Scottish origin, A. G. Bell, patented the telephone (or, as it was then called, the “talking telegraph”) - a device that allows human speech to be transmitted over a distance. A year later, he and two investors founded the Bell Telephone Company, which offered communications services. Immediately after its founding, the company became embroiled in a patent war with the Western Union Company, then the operator of the largest telegraph network in the United States, which also planned to provide telephone services to customers and was working on its own telephone prototype. The patent dispute continued until 1879 and ended with the victory of the Bell Telephone Company, which retained the right to provide telephone services. In 1881, the company acquired the Western Electric division of Western Union, a key manufacturer of telegraph equipment. In 1885, Bell founded a subsidiary of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), which specialized in laying long-distance telephone lines. In 1892, a line from New York to Chicago was opened.

In 1894, the patent expired and A. G. Bell faced increased competition from independent telephone service providers . In response to this, the management of the Bell Telephone Company began actively buying up local companies, and in 1910 acquired its main competitor, Western Union. In 1915, the first transcontinental call was made - from San Francisco on the West Coast of the United States to New York on the East Coast. In the conversation, Bell repeated the phrase he said when he first used the telephone in 1876. Addressing his assistant, Thomas Watson, he said: “Mr. Watson, come to me, I need you,” since the traditional telephone greeting “Hello” at this time the moment did not yet exist . “It will take me five days to get to you,” Watson answered him (quoted in: Riordan. 1997. P. 59–60). In 1925, the research division of AT&T was founded - Bell Telephone Laboratories (since 2016 - Nokia Bell Labs ), which owns several important inventions - in particular, transistors , the C programming language , developments in the field of radio physics and satellite communications and much more. In 1927, the first transatlantic telephone call was made from New York to London .

In the 1930s AT&T gradually took its place as the largest telephone company in the United States. By the end of the decade, it serviced 83% of all telephones in the country and controlled 98% of long-distance lines, and also produced almost all telephone equipment. By the beginning of the 1970s. AT&T has become the largest company not only in the USA, but throughout the world ( AT&T Corporation // Britannica ) with a staff of almost 1 million people.

AT&T's successes have attracted the attention of antitrust authorities. In 1913, the company was recognized as a natural monopoly and was required to provide its long-distance infrastructure to all independent telephone companies. In 1949, the US Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against AT&T, which, according to the department, violated the Sherman Antitrust Act and should have split up with Western Electric. However, the proceedings ended in AT&T's favor, and Western Electric remained part of the company. In 1974, new antitrust proceedings were initiated, as a result of which in 1984 AT&T agreed to sell 22 of its local carriers. They were organized into seven regional telephone companies, which the press called "Baby Bell" ( Holsendolph. 1982 ). By the mid-2010s. AT&T regained control of most of these assets ( Pagliery. 2014 ).

In 1991, AT&T acquired NCR Corporation, which was involved in the production of electronic devices, including computers and ATMs. In 1994, McCaw Cellular Communications, a pioneer and at that time the largest cellular provider in the United States, was purchased.

In 1994, AT&T changed its official name to AT&T Corporation, by which it remained known for a long time. In 1996, AT&T Corporation was split into three separate companies, the largest such reorganization in global business history ( Bell Laboratories // Britannica ). The largest company formed retained the AT&T name and continued to provide telecommunications services, Lucent Technologies Inc. (which included most of Bell Laboratories) focused on the development and production of telephones, equipment and computer chips, and NCR Corporation focused on the production of cash registers, ATMs and other electronic devices. In 2006, Lucent Technologies was merged with the French telecommunications company Alcatel , and formed as a result of the Alcatel-Lucent transaction in 2016, it was absorbed by the Finnish corporation Nokia.

In 2015, AT&T acquired the largest satellite television provider in the United States, DirecTV, for almost $49 billion ( Stelter 2014 ). In 2016, the purchase of Time Warner was announced, one of the largest entertainment corporations in the world, which owned the Warner Bros. film studio. Pictures, HBO and TBS. AT&T paid $85 billion for Time Warner. The deal was opposed by the US Department of Justice and President D. Trump . A lengthy lawsuit allowed the deal to be closed only in 2018, after which Time Warner was renamed WarnerMedia. However, the deal was unsuccessful for AT&T: in 2021, the company was forced to lay off 28 thousand people, its shares collapsed, and it announced that it was getting rid of media assets. WarnerMedia was spun off into a separate company, which was purchased by media giant Discovery ( Feiner. 2021 ). The deal, which closed in 2022, created Warner Bros. Discovery .

AT&T is engaged not only in providing services to private customers and businesses, but also in military contracts. In particular, the company created a missile attack warning system for the US Department of Defense (AT&T Corporation // Britannica).