A telephone company, also known as a telco, telephone service provider, or telecommunications operator, is a kind of

communications service provider A telephone company, also known as a telco, telephone service provider, or telecommunications operator, is a kind of communications service provider (CSP), more precisely a telecommunications service provider (TSP), that provides telecommunica ...

(CSP), more precisely a telecommunications service provider (TSP), that provides

telecommunications 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 ...

services such as

telephony Telephony ( ) is the field of technology involving the development, application, and deployment of telecommunication services for the purpose of electronic transmission of voice, fax, or data, between distant parties. The history of telephony is i ...

and

data communication Data transmission and data reception or, more broadly, data communication or digital communications is the transfer and reception of data in the form of a digital bitstream or a digitized analog signal transmitted over a point-to-point or ...

s access. Many telephone companies were at one time government agencies or privately owned but state-regulated

monopolies A monopoly (from Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a speci ...

. The government agencies are often referred to, primarily in Europe, as PTTs (

postal, telegraph and telephone service A postal, telegraph, and telephone service (or PTT) is a government agency responsible for postal mail, telegraph, and telephone services. Such monopolies existed in many countries, though not in North America or Japan. Many PTTs have been partial ...

s). Telephone companies are

common carrier A common carrier in common law countries (corresponding to a public carrier in some civil law systems,Encyclopædia Britannica CD 2000 "Civil-law public carrier" from "carriage of goods" usually called simply a ''carrier'') is a person or compan ...

s, and in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

are also called local exchange carriers. With the advent of

mobile telephony Mobile telephony is the provision of telephone services to phones which may move around freely rather than stay fixed in one location. Telephony is supposed to specifically point to a voice-only service or connection, though sometimes the li ...

, telephone companies now include

wireless carrier A mobile network operator (MNO), also known as a wireless service provider, wireless carrier, cellular company, or mobile network carrier, is a provider of wireless communications services that owns or controls all the elements necessary to sell ...

s, or

mobile network operator A mobile network operator (MNO), also known as a wireless service provider, wireless carrier, cellular company, or mobile network carrier, is a provider of wireless communications services that owns or controls all the elements necessary to sell ...

s. Most telephone companies now also function as

internet service provider An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise private ...

s (ISPs), and the distinction between a telephone company and an ISP may disappear completely over time, as the current trend for supplier convergence in the industry continues. In the past, most TSPs were

government owned State ownership, also called government ownership and public ownership, is the ownership of an industry, asset, or enterprise by the state or a public body representing a community, as opposed to an individual or private party. Public ownersh ...

and operated in most countries, due to the nature of

capital Capital may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** List of national capital cities * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences * Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used f ...

expenditure involved in it. But today there are many private players in most regions of the world, and even most of the government owned companies have been privatized.

History

In 1913, the

Kingsbury Commitment The Kingsbury Commitment is a 1913 out-of-court settlement of the United States government's antitrust challenge against the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) for AT&T's then-growing vertical monopoly in the telephone industry. In retu ...

allowed more than 20,000 independent telephone companies in the United States to use the long distance trunks of Bell Telephone Company.

Popular culture

Comedian A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing Amusement is the state of experiencing humorous and entertaining events or situations while the person or a ...

Lily Tomlin Mary Jean "Lily" Tomlin (born September 1, 1939) is an American actress, comedian, writer, singer, and producer. She started her career as a stand-up comedian as well as performing off-Broadway during the 1960s. Her breakout role was on the vari ...

frequently satirized the telephone industry (and the country's then-dominant

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 particular) with a

skit Skit may refer to: * * A short segment in a performance, such as: ** Sketch comedy ** Hip hop skit ** Puppet skit ** Promo (professional wrestling) * Skit note, parody of a banknote See also * Skete A skete ( ) is a monastic communi ...

playing the telephone operator Ernestine. Ernestine, who became one of Tomlin's trademark characters, was perhaps most famous for the following line: ''"We don't care; we don't have to. We're the phone company."'' * In the satirical 1967 film ''

The President's Analyst ''The President's Analyst'' is a 1967 American satirical black comedy film written and directed by Ted Flicker and starring James Coburn. The film has elements of political satire and science fiction, including themes concerning modern ethics ...

'', The Phone Company (TPC) is depicted as plotting to enslave humanity by replacing

landline A landline (land line, land-line, main line, home phone, fixed-line, and wireline) is a telephone connection that uses metal wires or optical fiber telephone line for transmission, as distinguished from a mobile cellular network, which uses ...

s with brain-implanted

mobile phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...

s. * In the 1988 video game ''

Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders ''Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders'' is a 1988 graphic adventure game by Lucasfilm Games. It was the second game to use the SCUMM engine, after ''Maniac Mansion''. The project was led by David Fox, with Matthew Alan Kane as the co-desig ...

'', The Phone Company (TPC) was used by the Caponian aliens to secretly reduce the intelligence of humans.

References

;Citations ;Bibliography * Huurdeman, Anton A
The Worldwide History Of Telecommunications
Wiley-IEEE, 2003, ,

External links

Village Telco
- site about microtelcos
Business Telecoms Company
- site about business broadband {{DEFAULTSORT:Telephone Company