Organized to Serve You
As a telephone user, you want to be able to count on your telephone, to be able to call other telephone users any time, anywhere. You expect reliable service at low cost. The kind of service you expect depends on teamwork—among telephone people in your local company, and among the separate companies that make up the Bell System. That is the way the Bell System is organized to serve you. This is what it contains:
■ A group of operating telephone companies, each known as an Associated Company and each serving its particular territory.
■ One of the finest research and development organizations in the world, Bell Telephone Laboratories. Its work consists of research, development and design in the communications field. It creates apparatus that improves telephone service, makes it more efficient, and keeps its cost low.
■ A supply organization, the Western Electric Company. It manufactures or purchases equipment and supplies for the operating companies on a more economical basis than the individual companies could do for themselves. It distributes equipment and supplies to the various companies. It installs equipment in telephone central offices.
■ A headquarters organization, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company. AT&T functions as a general staff for the Bell System, co-ordinating the enterprise and assisting the operating companies. It owns most of the stock of most of the operating companies. It owns nearly all the stock of the Western Electric Company, and it shares with Western Electric the ownership of the Bell Laboratories. In conjunction with the Associated Companies, the AT&T Long Lines Department furnishes long distance telephone service and other communication services over its lines and radio relay channels.
Principal elements of the Bell System
AMERICAN TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH COMPANY
SERVICES TO TELEPHONE COMPANIES UNDER LICENSE CONTRACTS
AND
OPERATION OF LONG-DISTANCE LINES
PROVIDING INTERCONNECTION BETWEEN AND THROUGH TERRITORIES OF THOSE COMPANIES
WESTERN ELECTRIC COMPANY
MANUFACTURING, PURCHASING, DISTRIBUTING AND CENTRAL OFFICE INSTALLATION FOR THE BELL SYSTEM
BELL TELEPHONE LABORATORIES
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT WORK FOR THE BELL SYSTEM (INCLUDING WESTERN ELECTRIC COMPANY)
SUBSIDIARY AND OTHER ASSOCIATED TELEPHONE COMPANIES
PROVIDE TELEPHONE SERVICES AND FACILITIES WITHIN THEIR RESPECTIVE TERRITORIES WITH THE AID OF SERVICES RECEIVED FROM THE AMERICAN TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH COMPANY UNDER LICENSE CONTRACTS
The organization of the Bell System has grown up in a natural way over a period of many years. The American Bell Telephone Company, predecessor of AT&T, owned the original Bell patents. It licensed local companies to rent Bell telephones to their subscribers. Ownership of the operating companies by the headquarters organization came about because of their need to finance expanding service, and as a means of providing the best service at lowest cost. AT&T bought Western Electric in 1882 because it was the best manufacturer of telephone apparatus and because a dependable source of supplies was essential. The Bell Laboratories stemmed from the shop where Alexander Graham Bell made the first telephone. The work of the Laboratories is a continuation, on a much larger scale, of early efforts to discover improvements in the art of telephony.
Motor launches pull first segment of the new transatlantic telephone cable toward the Newfoundland shore from HMTS Monarch, world’s largest cable ship. The new underseas cable will link this continent with Great Britain.