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 100 years from its creation in 1877 until its antitrust breakup in 1983. The system of companies was often colloquially called Ma Bell (as in "Mother Bell"), as it held a vertical monopoly over telecommunication products and services in most areas of the United States and Canada. At the time of the breakup of the Bell System in the early 1980s, it had assets of $ 150 billion (equivalent to $ 440 billion in 2023) and employed over one million people.
50-520: Iconectiv supplies communications providers with network planning and management services. The company’s cloud-based information as a service network and operations management and numbering solutions span trusted communications, digital identity management and fraud prevention. Known as Bellcore after its establishment in the United States in 1983 as part of the break-up of the Bell System ,
100-729: A $ 200 million investment in iconectiv and received a 16.7 percent ownership stake in the company. In 2015, iconectiv won a contract procured by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to operate the Number Portability Administration Center (NPAC). The service had been operated by Neustar Inc. for 18 years. iconectiv completed the transition from Neustar on May 29, 2018 becoming the Local Number Portability Administrator (LNPA) for
150-466: A decade later. Bellcore also operated the former Bell System Center for Technical Education in Lisle, Illinois . In 1996, the company was provisionally acquired by Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). The sale was closed one year later, following a regulatory approval process that covered every U.S. state individually. Since the divested company no longer had any ownership connection with
200-470: A few years local exchange companies were established in every major city in the United States. Use of the Bell System name initially referred to those early telephone franchises and eventually comprised all telephone companies owned by American Telephone & Telegraph , referred to internally as associated companies , regional holding companies , or later Bell operating companies (BOCs). In 1899, American Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T) acquired
250-479: A post- World War II reconstruction relationship with state-owned Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) before the 1956 boundaries were emplaced. Before 1956, the Bell System's reach was truly gargantuan. Even during the period from 1956 to 1984, the Bell System's dominant reach into all forms of communications was pervasive within the United States and influential in telecommunication standardization throughout
300-404: A result of this vertical monopoly , the Bell System effectively owned most telephone service in the United States by 1940, from local and long-distance service to the telephones. This allowed Bell to prohibit its customers from connecting equipment not made or sold by Bell to the system without paying fees. For example, if a customer desired a style of telephone not leased by the local Bell company,
350-401: A single Bell System trademark. For each regional operating company, its name was placed where "name of associated company" appears in this template version of the trademark. Bell system telephones and related equipment were made by Western Electric , a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T Co. Member telephone companies paid a fixed fraction of their revenues as a license fee to Bell Labs . As
400-601: A term that referred generally to all AT&T companies, of which there were five major divisions: In 1913, the federal government challenged the Bell System's growing monopoly over the phone system under AT&T ownership in an anti-trust suit, leading to the Kingsbury Commitment . Under the commitment, AT&T escaped break-up or nationalization in exchange for divesting itself of Western Union and allowing non-competing independent telephone companies to interconnect with its long-distance network. After 1934,
450-531: A wholly owned subsidiary of Ericsson. On June 15, 2011, Ericsson announced the completion of the purchase from private-equity firms Providence Equity Partners and Warburg Pincus , with the goal to pursue industry trends that include mobile broadband , managed services / outsourcing and global OSS / BSS transformation. The acquisition, which officially closed on January 12, 2012, added about 2,600 employees to Ericsson's staff. On June 4, 2012, Telcordia and its products were officially rebranded as Ericsson. In
500-578: Is a growth investor . Warburg Pincus has raised 21 private equity funds which have invested over $ 100 billion in over 1,000 companies in 40 countries. In June 2024, Warburg Pincus was ranked ninth in Private Equity International 's PEI 300 ranking of the largest private equity firms in the world. In 1939, Eric Warburg of the Warburg banking family founded a company under the name E.M. Warburg & Co. Its first address
550-605: Is a global private equity firm, headquartered in New York City, with offices in the United States , Europe , Brazil , China , Southeast Asia and India . Warburg has been a private equity investor since 1966. As of April 2024 the firm had over $ 90 billion in assets under management and invests in a range of sectors including retail, industrial manufacturing, energy , financial services , health care , technology , media , and real estate . Warburg Pincus
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#1732790532358600-436: Is structured as a global partnership led by Chairman, Timothy Geithner , CEO, Charles R. "Chip" Kaye, and President, Jeffrey Perlman. More than 140 Warburg Pincus companies have listed on exchanges, raising approximately $ 30 billion in public markets. In each of these IPOs, the firm was the principal financial investor in the portfolio company. The companies have listed on 13 exchanges, including at least 30 IPOs outside
650-492: The Baby Bells and do not provide telephone service. Beginning in 1991, the Baby Bells began to consolidate operations or rename their Bell Operating Companies according to the parent company name, such as "Bell Atlantic – Delaware, Inc." or "U S WEST Communications, Inc.", to unify their corporate images. The Bell System service marks, including the circled-bell logo, especially as redesigned by Saul Bass in 1969, and
700-495: The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) assumed regulation of AT&T. Proliferation of telephone service allowed the company to become the largest corporation in the world until its dismantling by the United States Department of Justice in 1984, at which time the Bell System ceased to exist. Receiving a U.S. patent for the invention of the telephone on March 7, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell formed
750-409: The Number Portability Administration Center (NPAC), the system that supports the implementation of local number portability. iconectiv was established on October 20, 1983, as Central Services Organization as part of the 1982 Modification of Final Judgment that broke up the Bell System . It later received the name Bell Communications Research. Nicknamed Bellcore , it was a consortium established by
800-836: The Regional Bell Operating Companies ( Baby Bells ), the name was changed to Telcordia Technologies in 1999. The headquarters was moved to Piscataway , New Jersey. The former headquarters campus in Morristown and its offices and laboratories in Red Bank, New Jersey, are former Bell Labs locations that were transferred to Telcordia. Equal stakes in the company were sold in March 2005 to Providence Equity Partners and Warburg Pincus . On June 14, 2011, Ericsson announced an agreement to acquire Telcordia for $ 1.15 billion. On January 12, 2012, Telcordia became
850-509: The Regional Holding Companies upon their separation from AT&T. Since AT&T retained Bell Laboratories , the operating companies desired a separate research and development facility. Bellcore, the tenth company to register an Internet domain name in comTLD , provided joint research and development, was involved in standards setting, training, and centralized government point-of-contact functions for its co-owners,
900-507: The post-World War II occupation was considered an administrative adjunct to the North American Bell System. Immediately before the 1984 break-up, the Bell System had the following corporate structure : On January 1, 1984, the former components of the Bell System were structured into the following Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs), which became known as Baby Bells. After 1984, multiple mergers occurred of
950-574: The 1910s, American antitrust regulators had been observing and accusing the Bell System of abusing its monopoly power, and had brought legal action multiple times over the decades. In 1974 the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice brought a lawsuit against Bell claiming violations of the Sherman Act . In 1982, anticipating that it could not win, AT&T agreed to a Justice Department-mandated consent decree that settled
1000-488: The Bell System's Caribbean regional operating companies. The consent decree also forced Bell to make all of its patents royalty-free . This led to substantial increases in innovation, in particular in the electronics and computer sectors. Steven Weber 's The Success of Open Source characterizes the consent decree as important in fostering the open source movement. The Bell System also owned various Caribbean regional operating companies, as well as 54% of Japan's NEC and
1050-597: The Bell Telephone Company in 1877, which in 1885 became AT&T. When Bell's original patent expired 15 years later in 1894, the telephone market opened to competition and 6,000 new telephone companies started while the Bell Telephone company took a significant financial downturn. On April 30, 1907, Theodore Newton Vail returned as President of AT&T. Vail believed in the superiority of one national telephone system and AT&T adopted
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#17327905323581100-548: The Bell name and the circled-bell trademark until SBC opted for all of its companies to do business under the "SBC" name in 2002. Bell Atlantic used the Bell name and circled-bell trademark until renaming itself Verizon in 2000. Pacific Bell continued operating in California under that name (or the shortened "PacBell" nickname) until SBC purchased it. In Canada, Bell Canada ( divested from AT&T in 1975) continues to use
1150-437: The Bell name. For the decades that Nortel was named Northern Telecom, its research and development arm was Bell Northern Research. Bell Canada and its holding-company parent, Bell Canada Enterprises , still use the Bell name. They used variations of the circled-bell logo until 1977, which until 1976 strongly resembled the 1921 to 1939 Bell System trademark shown above. Warburg Pincus Warburg Pincus LLC
1200-525: The DOJ had agreed upon in 1956. Before the 1956 break-up, the Bell System included the companies listed below, plus those listed in the pre-1984 section. Northern Electric and the Caribbean regional operating companies were considered part of the Bell System proper before the break-up. Nippon Electric was considered a more distant affiliate of Western Electric, and through its own research and development adapted
1250-715: The Department of Justice in 1913. AT&T committed to sell its $ 30 million in Western Union capital stock, allow competitors to interconnect with its long-distance telephone network, and not acquire other independent companies without permission from the Interstate Commerce Commission . The Bell trademark was used from 1921 through 1969 by both the AT&;T corporation and the regional operating corporations to co-brand themselves under
1300-655: The France-headquartered business Polyplus to life science group Sartorius for approximately €2.4 billion. During the post-war period, Eric Warburg vied with his cousin Siegmund Warburg , founder of S.G. Warburg , over the use of the Warburg name in New York. Siegmund wished to expand the S.G. Warburg franchise into New York but was blocked by the existence of E.M. Warburg & Co. Following
1350-511: The Northwestern Bell name. In 1984, each regional Bell operating company was assigned a set list of names it was allowed to use in combination with the Bell marks. By 2022, all these Bell System names had disappeared from the United States business landscape. Cincinnati Bell was the last to use the name, until 2022 when it rebranded to Altafiber , though it still has Cincinnati Bell as its corporate name. Southwestern Bell used both
1400-802: The U.S. In August 2010, a six-year partnership between management and Warburg Pincus led to MEG Energy's successful IPO. Warburg Pincus has a history of venture capital investing. The firm is a founding member of the venture capital associations in the U.S. and China, and offers a global entrepreneur in residence program to help start up new businesses. In October 2014, Reuters reported that Warburg Pincus had raised $ 4 billion for its first energy-focused private equity fund. In late 2018, Warburg Pincus closed its Warburg Pincus Global Growth, L.P. fund at $ 14.8 billion, and in June 2019, closed its Warburg Pincus China-Southeast Asia II, L.P. fund at $ 4.25 billion. In April 2023, Warburg Pincus and ArchiMed agreed to sell
1450-608: The United States. iconectiv was awarded the contract from CTIA to provide Common Short Code (CSC) Registry Services, effective January 1, 2016. In 2019, the Secure Telephone Identity Governance Authority (STI-GA) selected iconnectiv as the U.S. STI Policy Administrator for supervising measures to ensure voice calls have accurate caller ID . 40°35′13″N 74°37′33″W / 40.58694°N 74.62583°W / 40.58694; -74.62583 Bell System Beginning in
1500-578: The assets of its parent, the American Bell Telephone Company. American Bell had created AT&T to provide long-distance calls between New York and Chicago and beyond. AT&T became the parent of American Bell Telephone Company, and thus the head of the Bell System, because regulatory and tax rules were leaner in New York than in Boston, where American Bell was headquartered. Later, the Bell System and its moniker "Ma Bell" became
1550-998: The company until 2002, when they stepped down and appointed Charles Kaye and Joseph P. Landy as co-presidents. Pincus died in 2009. Warburg Pincus began investing in Europe in 1983 and opened its first office in Asia in 1994. It has invested more than $ 5 billion in Europe ; more than $ 3 billion in India and more than $ 3.3 billion in China . The firm is headquartered in New York and has offices in Beijing , Berlin , Hong Kong , Houston , London , Mumbai , San Francisco , São Paulo , Shanghai and Singapore , with administrative offices in Amsterdam , Luxembourg and Mauritius . The firm
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1600-426: The company's name changed to Telcordia Technologies after a change of ownership in 1996. The business was acquired by Ericsson in 2012, then restructured and rebranded as iconectiv in 2013. A major architect of the United States telecommunications system, the company pioneered many services, including caller ID , call waiting , mobile number portability , and toll-free telephone (800) service. It also pioneered
1650-445: The customer was required to purchase the instrument at cost, furnish it to the telephone company for rewiring, pay a service charge, and a monthly lease fee for using it. In 1949, the United States Department of Justice alleged in an antitrust lawsuit that AT&T and the Bell System operating companies were using their near-monopoly in telecommunications to attempt to establish unfair advantage in related technologies. The outcome
1700-535: The designs of Western Electric's North American telecommunications equipment for use in Japan, which to this day gives much of Japan's telephone equipment and network a closer resemblance to North American ANSI and iconectiv standards than to European-originated ITU-T standards. Before the 1956 break-up, Northern Electric was focused on manufacturing, without significant telecommunication-equipment research & development of its own. The operation of Japan's NTT during
1750-506: The effective sale of the business to Pincus, Siegmund Warburg accused Eric of prostituting the Warburg name. "Complicating matters was that Siegmund thought Pincus the wrong kind of Jew—of Eastern European ancestry, with a garment-district background. Professionally, he thought Pincus well below haute banque stature in the venture capital world." In January 1970, Siegmund finally got the name changed to E.M. Warburg, Pincus & Company to differentiate it from S.G. Warburg & Company. "In
1800-1104: The end, however, Lionel Pincus had the last laugh on Siegmund. He expanded Eric's tiny firm into a giant, thriving business, with three and a half billion dollars of venture capital partnerships." In 1999, they attempted to purchase English Premier League association football club Everton . Warburg Pincus invested in the information and communication technology sectors, including investments in Avaya , Bharti Tele-Ventures , Harbour Networks, NeuStar , PayScale , and Telcordia . Warburg Pincus has invested in companies such as CityMD , The Summit Medical Group , Harbin Pharmaceutical , Venari Resources , NIO , ZTO Express in China and South East Asia, Bharti Telecommunications, Apollo Tyres Ltd, Ecom Express, SBI General Insurance in India, AmRest in Poland and Nuance Communications in
1850-607: The former headquarters of AT&T Wireless. In February 2013, Ericsson launched iconectiv for its interconnection business. During this time, Ericsson maintained its corporate presence in Plano, Texas and iconectiv's corporate presence in New Jersey. In July 2017, iconectiv moved its headquarters from Piscataway to Bridgewater , New Jersey . In August 2024, Ericson announced a sale of iconnectiv to Koch Equity for $ 1 billion. On August 10, 2017, Francisco Partners announced
1900-438: The industrialized world. The 1984 Bell System divestiture brought an end to the affiliation branded as the Bell System. It resulted from another antitrust lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice in 1974, alleging illegal practices by the Bell System companies to stifle competition in the telecommunications industry. The parties settled the lawsuit on January 8, 1982, superseding the former restrictions that AT&T and
1950-484: The lawsuit and ordered it to break itself up into seven " Regional Bell Operating Companies " (known as "The Baby Bells"). This ended the existence of the conglomerate in 1984. The Baby Bells became independent companies and several of them are large corporations today. In 1877, the American Bell Telephone Company, named after Alexander Graham Bell , opened the first telephone exchange in New Haven, Connecticut . Within
2000-477: The marks on rare occasions to maintain their trademark rights, even less now that they have adopted names conceived long after divestiture. Examples include Verizon, which still used the Bell logo on its trucks and payphones until it updated its own logo in 2015, and Qwest, formerly US West , which licenses the Northwestern Bell and Mountain Bell names to Unical Enterprises, who makes telephones under
2050-416: The operating companies and between them, so that some components of the former Bell System are now owned by companies independent of the historic Bell System, including foreign telecommunications firms. The structure of the companies today is as follows. The following telephone companies are considered independent of the Baby Bells : The following companies were divested after 1984 from AT&T Corp. or
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2100-581: The prepaid charging system and the Intelligent Network . Headquartered in Bridgewater, New Jersey (U.S.), iconectiv provides network and operations management, numbering, registry and fraud prevention services for the global telecommunications industry. It provides numbering services in more than a dozen countries, including serving as the Local Number Portability Administrator (LNPA) for the United States. In that capacity, iconectiv manages
2150-445: The process of integration, Telcordia's Advanced Technology Solutions business unit, the company's research arm, was rebranded as Applied Communication Sciences , and became a wholly owned subsidiary of Ericsson that operated independently on day-to-day operations pursuant to a proxy structure mandated by the U.S. government. In October 2012, Applied Communication Sciences relocated its headquarters to Basking Ridge , New Jersey, occupying
2200-566: The seven Regional Holding Companies that were themselves divested from AT&T as holding companies for the 22 local Bell Operating Companies. Bellcore's initial staff and corporate culture were drawn from the nearby Bell Laboratories locations in northern New Jersey, plus additional staff from AT&T and regional operating companies. The company originally had its headquarters in Livingston with dedication by New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean in 1985, but moved its headquarters to Morristown
2250-489: The slogan One Policy, One System, Universal Service. This became the company's philosophy for the next 70 years. Under Vail, AT&T began acquiring many of the smaller telephone companies including the Western Union Telegraph Company . In response to the threat of antitrust action from government, AT&T entered into an out-of-court agreement, known as the Kingsbury Commitment with
2300-414: The various resulting 1984 spinoffs, only BellSouth actively used and promoted the Bell name and logo during its entire history, from the 1984 break-up to its reunion with the new AT&T in 2006. Similarly, cessation of using either the Bell name or logo occurred for many of the other companies more than a decade after the 1984 break-up as part of an acquisition-related rebranding. The others have only used
2350-500: The words Bell System in text, were used before January 1, 1984, when the AT&;T divestiture of its regional operating companies took effect. The word mark Bell , the logo, and other related trademarks, are held by each of the remaining Bell companies, namely AT&T, Verizon , CenturyLink , and Altafiber . International rights to the marks, except for Canada , are held by a joint venture of these companies, Bell IP Holdings . Of
2400-415: The working language of the office switched from German to English. In 1967, John Vogelstein , a former partner at Lazard Freres , joined Pincus to build the firm. Together they developed a strategy of investing in diversified companies of various sizes rather than focusing on start-ups. Pincus was the founder and chairman while Vogelstein was vice chairman and then president. Pincus and Vogelstein ran
2450-848: Was a 1956 consent decree limiting AT&T to 85% of the United States' national telephone network and certain government contracts, and from continuing to hold interests in Canada and the Caribbean . The Bell System's Canadian operations included the Bell Canada regional operating company and the Northern Electric manufacturing subsidiary of the Bell System's Western Electric equipment manufacturer. Western Electric divested Northern Electric in 1956, but AT&T did not divest itself of Bell Canada until 1975. ITT Inc. , then known as International Telephone & Telegraph Co. , purchased
2500-563: Was 52 William Street, New York, the Kuhn Loeb building. Throughout the early post-war period, the firm was a small office of 20 employees. In 1966, E.M. Warburg merged with Lionel I. Pincus & Co , forming a new company that eventually became known as E.M. Warburg, Pincus & Co. In 1965, when Eric Warburg retired to Germany , control was handed to Lionel Pincus , a partner in the Ladenburg Thalmann investment bank, and
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