Elektrisk Bureau or EB was a

Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe * Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway * Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including ...

manufacturer of

telecommunication Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...

equipment. It was founded in 1882 and lasted until 1993 when it became part of

Asea Brown Boveri ABB Ltd. is a Swedish-Swiss multinational corporation headquartered in Zürich, Switzerland. The company was formed in 1988 when Sweden's Allmänna Svenska Elektriska Aktiebolaget (ASEA) and Switzerland's Brown, Boveri & Cie merged to create ...

(ABB). The company was located at Billingstad in

Asker Asker ( no, Asker), properly called Askerbygda in Norwegian, is a district and former Municipalities of Norway, municipality in Akershus, Norway. From 2020 it is part of the larger administrative municipality Asker, Viken (also known as Greate ...

History

In 1882 Carl Söderberg founded EB. The background was that Söderberg, who had started a telephone union in Christiania, felt that

Bell System The Bell System was a system of telecommunication companies, led by the Bell Telephone Company and later by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), that dominated the telephone services industry in North America for over one hundr ...

had been charging too high prices. In 1885 the company was made limited and a year later Akers Mekaniske Verksted became the largest owner. EB became the largest domestic producer of telephone systems as well as export. But during the 1920s when the automatic centrals were introduced, EB lost its leading position. Instead focus was moved to the consumer market, and in 1928

L. M. Ericsson (lit. "Telephone Stock Company of LM Ericsson"), commonly known as Ericsson, is a Sweden, Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm. The company sells infrastructure, software, and services in ...

became the main owner of EB, granting a great deal of patents that EB could utilize. EB also had close connections with Televerket, whom EB was the largest producer of telecommunication equipment for. This was especially true in the late 1960s to abolish waiting lists for telephone lines. The Swedish

ASEA ''Allmänna Svenska Elektriska Aktiebolaget'' (English translation: General Swedish Electrical Limited Company; Swedish abbreviation: ASEA) was a Swedish industrial company. History ASEA was founded in 1883 by Ludvig Fredholm in Västerås as ...

eventually bought 67% of EB, and in 1988 the company became part of the new Asea Brown Boveri (ABB) group, through the brand EB was used until 1993, when ABB bought the rest of EB. {{Authority control Companies established in 1882 Manufacturing companies based in Oslo ABB