WHEN IS A BELL NOT A BELL?
When a telephone
company has the word 'Bell' in the name but is not a
descendant of the original Bell companies of course!
The
following companies are direct descendants of Graham
Bell's original enterprise:-
- AT&T (USA)
American Telephone and Telegraph Corporation, alias 'Ma Bell'. Since 1984 divestiture, when its role was confined to providing long-distance service and customer premises equipment, it has remained a powerful international and long-distance carrier. Its manufacturing interests were hived off (as Lucent Technologies) and the company has since re-entered the local telecommunications business.
- BELL ATLANTIC (USA)
One of the USA regional Bell operating companies (RBOCs) created at the divestiture of AT&T in 1984.
- BELL CABLEMEDIA plc (UK).
With numerous cable TV and telephony franchises in southern England, Bell Cablemedia was formed in 1994 from the combined assets of Bell Canada, Jones Intercable and Cable & Wireless Ltd and is now part of the Cable & Wireless group.
- BELL CANADA (Canada)
Largest telecomms operator in Canada.
- BELL CANADA ENTERPRISES
(Canada)
A subsidiary of Bell Canada, established for carrying out non core-business activities. At one time BCE had an interest in the UK Micronet operation.
- BELL LABS (see Bellcore)
- BELL SOUTH (USA)
One of the USA regional telephone operating companies (RBOCs) and a leading operator of paging services there. In the UK it bought a 40% stake in Air Call Communications Ltd.
- BELLCORE (USA)
Name stood for Bell Communications Research Inc. Based around the core of the old Bell Telephone Laboratories, the institution was transferred at the divestiture of AT&T to the combined ownership of the seven regional Bell operating companies (RBOCs) in the USA. Renamed Telcordia Technologies in 1999, sold to Science Applications International Corp (SAIC) in late 1997.
- SOUTHWESTERN BELL (USA)
One of the USA regional Bell operating companies (RBOCs) created at the divestiture of AT&T in 1984. http://www.swbell.com/ Following its merger with Ameritech in 1999, the company has launched an initiative to expand nationally into 30 top markets outside of its traditional service region. Under a new brand, SBC Telecom, the company will provide local and long-distance voice and data services in these 30 markets - the first time a former Bell operating company will compete for business and residential local phone customers on a national scale.
- SOUTHWESTERN BELL (UK)
This brand name was also applied to consumer telephone apparatus; distribution was taken over by Audioline Ltd.
The following
companies have a distant Bell connection:
- ALCATEL BELL (Belgium)
Belgian manufacturer of switching equipment, previously known as Bell Telephone Manufacturing Co. History at http://www.alcatel.be/telecom/aboutus/briefhis.htm
- BELL NORTHERN RESEARCH (UK).
Bell Northern is a branding used by Northern Telecom (Nortel) and the main Bell Northern Research laboratories are in Ottawa, Ontario (Canada). Northern Telecom, originally Northern Electric, was AT&T's manufacturing arm in Canada; the US-based manufacturing arm was called Western Electric. The Bell Northern Research laboratories, formerly Standard Telecommunications Laboratories, Harlow (Essex), were originally established by STC and later rebranded as ITT.
- LENBELL (Russia)
LenBell Telephone is an exchange equipment manufacturing company based in Leningrad. Joint venture between Alcatel Bell and Krasnaya Zarya.
- LUCENT TECHNOLOGIES
Lucent technologies is the name used today by the firm for many years known as Western Electric. Founded in 1869, Western Electric did not spring from the brow of Bell Telephone, but existed before Alexander Graham Bell made his invention. Before Bell came along, Western Electric was the principal manufacturer for Western Union, the telegraph company. Bell's subsequent acquisition of Western Electric was crucial in the establishment of a nationwide phone system, a system characterized by its early, primary emphasis on the production and distribution of hardware.
In 1882 Western Electric joined the Bell System (Bell purchased a controlling interest in its stock) and subsequently the company manufactured in every country with significant telephone systems. On the eve of World War 1, Western Electric's overseas locations included Antwerp, London, Berlin, Milan, Paris, Vienna. Budapest, Tokyo, Buenos Aires, Sydney—and St. Petersburg. Its international operations were spun off in 1925 to the International telephone & Telegraph Company (ITT) but the north American operations continued as before.
In 1956, in consequence of an antitrust case filed by the US Department of Justice, AT&T ("the Bell System") was ordered to divest all of its non-telephone activities, except those involving national defense. The consent decree also called for Western Electric to relinquish its 40 percent interest in Northern Electric of Canada, the last vestige of its international operations.
In 1982, when AT&T agreed to divest its 22 wholly-owned regional operating companies, the company also abandoned two names which had been associated with the company for more than a century: Bell and Western Electric. The government ordered that AT&T forfeit use of the Bell name and symbol to the operating companies (excepting the name Bell Laboratories). Western Electric disappeared as a separate entity when AT&T restructured according to its new competitive situation. One of the two primary parts of the new, smaller, AT&T was the old company's long lines department, now called AT&T Communications, which offered regulated long distance service. The second part of the new company, called AT&T Technologies, inherited the other two segments of the old Bell System: equipment manufacture and supply (the old Western Electric) and research and development (Bell Laboratories).
Subsequent to 1984, the company restructured AT&T Technologies, and abandoned its name in 1995, when the company was reborn as Lucent Technologies. Today some of its chief competitors - such as Alcatel N.V., Northern Telecom and NEC - all share Western Electric roots.
- NEC (Japan)
NEC Corp. (formerly Nippon Electric Co., Ltd.) was established on 17th July 1899 in Tokyo as a partner of Western Electric of Illinois (WE held 54 per cent of NEC). The joint venture originally distributed telephone equipment from the United States for the Japanese Ministry of Communication, the predecessor to Japan's telephone utility company, now called NTT Public Corporation. NEC began manufacturing soon after, and in the second decade of the century began to import electrical appliances, such as electrical fans, from Western Electric. During its early years, NEC was primarily a manufacturer of telephone-related equipment. But since the 1920s, it became involved in nearly every aspect of the communications field. In 1925, International Western Electric, which had been formed to control the overseas operations of WE, was sold to International Telephone and Telegraph and renamed International Standard Electric Co. ISEC continued to be involved with NEC, but in 1951 it ceased to own stock in NEC.
- NORTHERN TELECOM (NORTEL)
Begun as the mechanical department of Bell Canada in 1882, Northern Electric & Manufacturing Company Limited was incorporated in 1895. In 1914, Northern Electric merged with a manufacturer of rubber-coated wire for the electrical industry. The consolidated company expanded well beyond telephone equipment. By the 1930s, Northern Electric was selling radio and broadcasting sound equipment, electric sound equipment, and other lines of electrical equipment. Throughout this period, Northern acted as a branch plant of Western Electric.
The US government's decree of 1956 not only shrank the Bell System, but it created a new competitor, now called Northern Telecom. Today, this onetime Western Electric subsidiary is a global giant, selling products in more than 80 countries manufactured in its plants in Canada, France, China, and other countries—including the United States. In 1990, Northern Telecom, the world's sixth largest supplier of telecommunications equipment, vaulted into the third spot by purchasing the British firm STC (Standard Telephones & Cables), known as the British Western Electric Company (until 1925).
The name was changed from Northern Telecom Limited to Nortel Networks Corporation on April 29, 1999. "The new name reinforces Nortel Networks' market positioning as a provider of integrated networks spanning data and telephony and as a significant networking company in Internet solutions."
- SHANGHAI BELL (China)
Equipment manufacturing company established in 1984 as a joint venture between Alcatel Bell and the Chinese.
- WESTERN ELECTRIC
Today Western Electric is a trademark of Lucent Technologies Inc., formerly AT&T Technologies, Inc., licensed to Westrex Corp., formerly Western Electric Export Corporation, a company independent of Lucent. The current Western Electric makes high-specification valves (vacuum tubes) to old WE designs for audio enthusiasts. See http://www.westernelectric.com/
More in "Manufacturing the Future: A History of Western Electric" by Stephen B. Adams and Oriville R. Butler, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-65118-2. Bill Wright says: "This book gives in interesting detail the history of Western Electric from its beginning as Gray & Barton Company to its present form as Lucent Technologies. Interesting to note were some of Western Electric's "spin off companies" such as:
Graybar Electric Company
IBM
ITT Manufacturing
NEC (Nippon Electric Company)
Northern Electric (Northern Telecom / Nortel Networks)
The electrical power division of General Electric
etc,etc.
I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in telephone manufacturing, the Bell System, and the many inventions and contributions that WE made to our life such as:
The typewriter
The transistor
Radar
Laser Technology
Fiber Optics
Vacuum Tubes
The "DEW" Defence Early Warning system, etc, etc.
The following communications companies
have adopted the name 'Bell' for its associations but
have no historical connection with any 'traditional'
Bell communications company:
- CITIBELL (UK)
Citibell, launched in 1996, is a London-based independent telephone company providing service (currently) in the UK, Belgium and the Netherlands. It intends to expand elsewhere in Europe, also in the USA.
- EUROBELL Ltd (UK).
Eurobell is a cable TV and telephony operator. Its first operation was the Crawley (Sussex) cable TV franchise, which traded originally trading as Mid Downs Communications and was remarkable as a franchise that installed telephony before TV entertainment services. Although Deutsche Telekom now has an indirect holding in the company, Eurobell had no links with existing telephony companies at the outset.
The following
companies have never had any connection with Graham
Bell:-
- EDISON BELL
Phonograph reseller. "This company was formed in London on November 30, 1892 and acquired the exclusive rights to the British phonograph market from the Edison United Phonograph Company." The Bell in this instance is Mr Chichester Bell, the cousin of 'our' Graham Bell.
- PACKARD BELL
Former radio manufacturer and now a brand for personal computers. The Packard Bell brand name itself dates to 1926 when it was used for consumer radios, and later, televisions. The current company reintroduced the brand in 1987 to pioneer the mass-marketing of PCs through the retail channel.