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
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 communications 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 carriers, 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 territori ...
are also called
local exchange carriers. With the advent of
mobile telephony, telephone companies now include
wireless carriers, or
mobile network operators.
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 privat ...
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 and operated in most countries, due to the nature of
capital 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 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 Lily Tomlin frequently satirized the telephone industry (and the country's then-dominant
Bell System in particular) with a
skit 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 Phone Company (TPC) is depicted as plotting to enslave humanity by replacing
landlines 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 whi ...
s.
* In the 1988 video game ''
Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders'', The Phone Company (TPC) was used by the Caponian aliens to secretly reduce the intelligence of humans.
See also
*
Bell Telephone Company, forerunner of AT&T in the U.S.
*
Internet telephony service provider
*
Competitive local exchange carrier (in Canada and the U.S.)
*
Communications service provider
*
History of the telephone
This history of the telephone chronicles the development of the electrical telephone, and includes a brief overview of its predecessors. The first telephone patent was granted to Alexander Graham Bell in 1876.
Mechanical and acoustic devi ...
*
Incumbent local exchange carrier (of the Bell System)
*
Individual communication services and tariffs
*
Internet telephony service provider
*
List of telephone operating companies
This list identifies the fixed line operators and the mobile operators for the top 200 most populous countries in the world.
The list of countries and their populations is from List of countries by population. The CIA World Factbook is cited ...
*
List of mobile network operators
For a more comprehensive list of mobile phone operators, see Mobile country codes.
Terrestrial
This is a list of the world's thirty largest terrestrial mobile phone network operators measured by number of subscriptions.
Satellite based
Th ...
*
Mobile network operator
*
Plain old telephone service
Plain old telephone service (POTS), or plain ordinary telephone system, is a retronym for voice-grade telephone service employing analog signal transmission over copper loops. POTS was the standard service offering from telephone companies from 1 ...
(POTS)
*
Public switched telephone network
*
Telecommunications Industry Association
The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) is accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) to develop voluntary, consensus-based industry standards for a wide variety of Information and Communication Technologies ( ICT) ...
(for the development of U.S. telecom standards)
*
Regional Bell Operating Company
The Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOC) are the result of '' United States v. AT&T'', the U.S. Department of Justice antitrust suit against the former American Telephone & Telegraph Company (later known as AT&T Corp.). On January 8, 1 ...
(in the U.S.)
*
Service provider
A service provider (SP) is an organization that provides services, such as consulting, legal, real estate, communications, storage, and processing services, to other organizations. Although a service provider can be a sub-unit of the organization t ...
*
*
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
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