The New England Telephone and Telegraph Company was a very early, short lived company set up to develop the then-new

telephone A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into e ...

. It should not be confused with the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company that was formed a year later and was one of the largest of the regional Bell Telephone Companies. New England Telephone and Telegraph lasted only a year as a separate entity, from 1878 to 1879, and had no direct relationship with the later company of the same name, which after the breakup of the

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 ...

in 1984 became part of the NYNEX Corporation, now part of

Verizon Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas in ...

History

The New England Telephone and Telegraph Company was formed February 12, 1878, by investors in the states of

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

and

Rhode Island Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the List of U.S. states by area, smallest U.S. state by area and the List of states and territories of the United States ...

at the behest of an agent of

Gardiner Greene Hubbard Gardiner Greene Hubbard (August 25, 1822 – December 11, 1897) was an American lawyer, financier, and community leader. He was a founder and first president of the National Geographic Society; a founder and the first president of the Bell Telep ...

, the father-in-law of telephone inventor

Alexander Graham Bell Alexander Graham Bell (, born Alexander Bell; March 3, 1847 – August 2, 1922) was a Scottish-born inventor, scientist and engineer who is credited with patenting the first practical telephone. He also co-founded the American Telephone and Te ...

. New England Telephone and Telegraph merged with the

Bell Telephone Company The Bell Telephone Company, a common law joint stock company, was organized in Boston, Massachusetts, on July 9, 1877, by Alexander Graham Bell's father-in-law Gardiner Greene Hubbard, who also helped organize a sister company – the New Englan ...

(which was started on the basis of holding "potentially valuable patents"), on February 17, 1879, to form the National Bell Telephone Company, at which time

Theodore Vail Theodore Newton Vail (July 16, 1845 – April 16, 1920) was president of American Telephone & Telegraph between 1885 and 1889, and again from 1907 to 1919. Vail saw telephone service as a public utility and moved to consolidate telephone networks u ...

took over its operations. The National Bell Telephone Company merged with others on March 20, 1880, to form the American Bell Telephone Company.Pizer 2009, pg.125

Later acquisition of American Bell by AT&T

The American Bell Telephone Company was later purchased by its own subsidiary,

American Telephone & Telegraph AT&T Corporation, originally the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is the subsidiary of AT&T Inc. that provides voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to businesses, consumers, and government agen ...

(AT&T) on December 30, 1899. Thus share ownership of New England Telephone and Telegraph evolved into ownership of AT&T. AT&T would later undergo mergers with

SBC Communications The history of AT&T dates back to the invention of the telephone. The Bell Telephone Company was established in 1877 by Alexander Graham Bell, who obtained the first US patent for the telephone, and his father-in-law, Gardiner Greene Hubbard. Bell ...

and

BellSouth BellSouth, LLC (stylized as ''BELLSOUTH'' and formerly known as BellSouth Corporation) was an American telecommunications holding company based in Atlanta, Georgia. BellSouth was one of the seven original Regional Bell Operating Companies after ...

to become ''

The New AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company A holding company is a company whose primary business is holding a controlling interest in the securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not p ...

''.

References

;Notes ;Bibliography * Bruce, Robert V. ''Bell: Alexander Bell and the Conquest of Solitude''. Ithaca, New York:

Cornell University Press The Cornell University Press is the university press of Cornell University; currently housed in Sage House, the former residence of Henry William Sage. It was first established in 1869, making it the first university publishing enterprise in th ...

, 1990. . * Pizer, Russell A
The Tangled Web of Patent #174465
AuthorHouse, 2009, , .

History

Later acquisition of American Bell by AT&T

See also

References

Further reading