This is part two in two part series of Milestone in the History of AT&T. Part one – Milestones in the History of AT&T from 1876-1950 – can be found as an earlier article.
- 1951 – The first customer dialed long distances calls took place. Prior to this innovation, every long distance call required the assistance of a live operator in order to complete the call. The Western Electric rotary phones were taking hold.
- 1956 – AT&T enters into a consent decree with the United States Justice Department which effectively ends the antitrust suit brought against AT&T in 1949.
- 1956 – AT&T puts the first trans-Atlantic telephone cable into service. This cable was able to handle thirty six calls simultaneously and the charge per call was $12.00.
- 1958 – Although we all use modems today, I was surprised to learn that the first commercial modem was introduced by AT&T in 1958. AT&T was forging ahead with new technology in addition to building quality vintage rotary phones.
- 1962 – The Telstar I communication satellite was launched by AT&T.
- 1963 – The classic rotary phone replacement began with the introduction of the first touch tone telephone.
- 1964 – The first telephone cable to span the Pacific Ocean was introduced by AT&T. This cable, traveling under the ocean from Japan to Hawaii, where it terminated with a connection of two cables that spanned to the mainland of the United States.
- 1968 – AT&T introduces the first telephone booths that contained instructions for dialing 9-1-1 and begins the steps necessary to introduce 9-1-1 as the nationwide emergency number.
- 1970 – The first customer dialed international long distance calls take place between Manhattan, NYC and London, England.
- 1975 – The initial computerization of the vast AT&T telephone network begins. This innovation allowed the old bold phone system to handle 350,000 calls per hour with speed and flexibility heretofore unheard of.
- 1977 – The first fiber cable was put in place in Chicabo.
- 1982 – Once again, AT&T settles a US Justice Department anti-trust lawsuit filed in 1974. Terms of this settlement were that AT&T would divest itself of its local phone operations.
- 1983 – The first commercial cellular phone system was introduced in Chicago. Rotary dial telephones were destined to be replaced.
- 1984 – The Bell Telephone System ceased to exist and was replaced by regional companies. AT&T retained long distance and research and development divisiions.
- 1988 – The first submarine fiber optic cable was layed across the Atlantic ocean.
- 1991 – NCR Corporation is acquired by AT&T in what appeared to be an attempt to integrate communication technology with computer technology.
- 1993 – AT&T merges with McCaw Cellular which, at the time, was the largest cellular service provider in the United States.
- 1995 – AT&T restructures into three distinct corporate entities: Telephone services, which retains the AT&T name; products corporation later to be known as Lucent Technologies and a computer company which continued to be called NCR.
- 1998 – Merging with TCI allows AT&T to become the second largest cable provider in the United States.
- 1999 – AT&T purchases cable company MediaOne.
- 2000 – The AT&T broadband logo appears on the scene.
- 2001 – AT&T completes the spin off of what will be known as AT&T Wireless, a standalone corporation. In the same year Comcast acquires AT&T Broadband.
- 2002 – Comcast finalizes the acquisition of AT&T Broadband.
- 2004 – AT&T introduces VOIP technology, which stands for Voice Over Internet Protocol.
- 2005 – AT&T merges with SBC.
November 25th, 2010 at 12:15 pm
[...] the continuing history – Part II. Filed Under: [...]
February 6th, 2011 at 10:53 am
I’ll gear this review to 2 types of people: current Zune owners who are considering an upgrade, and people trying to decide between a Zune and an iPod. (There are other players worth considering out there, like the Sony Walkman X, but I hope this gives you enough info to make an informed decision of the Zune vs players other than the iPod line as well.)