10 Companies that Changed the World

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Road sign for a Bell Labs office in Holmdel, NJ

Photo by Chris Devers

4. Bell Telephone Company/AT&T

AT&T started as the Bell Patent Association, a legal entity established in 1874 to protect the patent rights of Alexander Graham Bell after he invented the telephone system. It was formalized in 1875 as Bell Telephone Company. In 1880 the management of American Bell had created what would become AT&T Long Lines. The project was the first of its kind to create a nationwide long-distance network with a commercially viable cost-structure. Starting from New York, its long-distance telephone network reached Chicago in 1892, with its multitudes of local exchanges continuing to stretch further and further yearly, eventually creating a continent-wide telephone system.

Bell Telephone Company was behind the worldwide communications revolution which changed the way the world operated in the 20th century. The company became a living symbol of the telephone’s ability to overcome distances and the bounds of time and space. Bell Company paved the way for the future era of the internet, mobile phones, and telecom in which we live today.

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