114-498: Fibe is a brand used by Bell Canada to market internet-related services, including copper, fibre to the node (FTTN) and fibre to the home (FTTH) services. It may refer to: Bell Canada Bell Canada (commonly referred to as Bell ) is a Canadian telecommunications company headquartered at 1 Carrefour Alexander-Graham-Bell in the borough of Verdun, Quebec , in Canada. It is an ILEC (incumbent local exchange carrier) in
228-456: A Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music ). He also modified a melodeon (a type of pump organ) so that it could transmit its music electrically over a distance. When the family was settled in and he had regained his health, both Alexander Graham and his father, an authority on the acoustics of speech , made plans to establish teaching practices. As the senior Bell was soon occupied with
342-476: A ceiling level cistern and to a hot water heater in the basement. The home's layout featured a central hallway plan and its ten rooms included a large kitchen, large dining room, parlour, study plus four bedrooms on its upper floor. A greenhouse conservatory with a workroom at its rear were also added by the Bells to the side of the house, off of its parlour. They were later removed in the 1920s, and then rebuilt in
456-536: A digital voice package. Bell Home Phone and Bell Mobility provide voicemail service as an optional feature for residences and businesses. Bell Prepaid customers, however, receive a basic voice mail at no additional charge. The complimentary voice mail can store five messages of one minute each, for up to five days. Bell Mobility operates a cellular network in all Canadian provinces. It also owns Virgin Mobile Canada as of May 2009 . While it created
570-905: A fee structure based on total capacity needed. Bell Canada had originally wanted to charge providers by how much data each user downloaded. In May 2017, the email addresses of 1.9 million Bell customers were stolen, along with the name and phone numbers of 1.7 million customers. Then in January 2018, there was another data breach affecting about 100 thousand Bell customers. Bell Canada's mobile phone services has been criticized for monopolistic practices, including during its acquisition of MTS. Bell Canada provides many different types of telecommunications services. Bell Canada provides standard voice service . It used to offer VoIP to customers, branded as "Digital Voice". Businesses can still obtain VoIP service. It now offers BTC (Bell Total Connect) SIP service as
684-570: A government operation that was transferred to the control of Canadian National Railways. Bell acquired interests in all Atlantic companies during the early 1960s, starting with Newfoundland Telephone (which later was organized as NewTel Communications ) on July 24, 1962. Bell acquired controlling interest in Maritime Telephone and Telegraph Company , later known as MT&T, which also owned PEI-based Island Telephone , and in Bruncorp,
798-448: A large gathering of Telephone Pioneers of America members attending a three-day conference in the city where Henderson was interred after his death. Approximately 200 dignitaries, Pioneers and others attended a graveside memorial service where a plaque in his memory was unveiled, in a service also attended by Henderson's great-granddaughter. The Homestead complex and Melville House have been renovated and restored several times: first in
912-642: A lecture position at Queen's College in Kingston, Ontario , he sent his son to Boston in his place when a contract was offered to teach in that city for the handsome sum of US$ 500 (approximately US$ 12,700 in current dollars ). Over the next several years the younger Bell would live and work in the Boston area during the school year, and then return to his parents' homestead during the summer months to rest with his family and conduct further telegraphic, and later, telephonic research work. During his summer vacation at
1026-617: A locked IPTV service known as Bell Fibe TV and Alt TV . The latter is available in most of Alberta , British Columbia, the Greater Toronto Area , Ottawa , Montreal , Québec City and Atlantic Canada. Bell Internet provides high speed DSL and fiber to the home FTTH Internet service in many areas where it offers phone service. DSL is offered in various speeds ranging from 500 kbit/s to 100 Mbit/s download and 256 kbit/s to 10 Mbit/s upload on DSL while up to 8 Gbit/s on fiber optic depending on what
1140-475: A main floor ceiling over three metres (10 feet) in height, a low-pitched gabled roof, a gingerbread trim-styled front veranda as well as a bathtub and shower equipped washroom fitted to an attic or ceiling level rainfall cistern —installed by the younger Bell at a time when few homes in the region had any fixed bathtubs at all. Its shower and oversized bathtub (likely chosen for the younger Alexander's large frame) drew hot and cold water from piping leading to both
1254-525: A policy of bandwidth throttling of BitTorrent traffic across its network when it announced it would stop the practice of "traffic shaping" during periods of high demand beginning in March 2012. In November 2011, only a few weeks before, the CRTC issued a ruling that stopped the controversial practice of usage-based billing of smaller internet service providers who purchase space on Bell Canada networks, providing
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#17328017690571368-459: A press release issued February 24, 2022, Bell announced that it has acquired Internet service provider EBOX. Bell wishes to keep the brand and the activities of EBOX and let the company continue to operate independently while remaining based in Longueuil. Bell previously offered Bell Home Monitoring, also known as Bell Gardium. Bell Canada also previously offered cable television services in
1482-655: A residence for the Homestead's caretakers, who were then residing on the upper level of Melville House, thus allowing the complete restoration of those rooms to their original condition as part of the Melville House museum. In 1971 Ontario Minister James W. Snow , in front of Brantford Mayor Howard Winter , Alderman Andrew Donaldson, chairman of the Bell Homestead Committee, plus Bell Historian Robert H. Spencer and other dignitaries, commemorated
1596-607: A restructuring whereby Aliant, renamed Bell Aliant Regional Communications , took over Bell's wireline operations in much of Ontario and Quebec (while continuing to use the "Bell" name in those regions), as well as its 63% ownership in rural lines operator Bell Nordiq (a publicly traded income trust that controls NorthernTel and Télébec ). These are in addition to Bell Aliant's operations in Atlantic Canada . In turn, Bell has assumed responsibility for Bell Aliant's wireless and retail operations. Bell Aliant, now an income trust,
1710-581: A result of the stock transaction used by Northern Telecom to purchase Bay Networks, BCE ceased to be the majority owner of Nortel, and in 2000, BCE spun out its share of Nortel, distributing its holdings to its shareholders. Between 1980 and 1997, the federal government fully deregulated the telecommunications industry and Bell Canada's monopoly largely ended. Bell Canada currently provides local phone service only in major city centres in Ontario and Quebec. In July 2006, Bell and former subsidiary Aliant completed
1824-504: A silver tea service that was a wedding gift to Alexander Graham and his bride Mabel Bell , a gold candy dish that was a wedding present to the elder Bells, Melville's walnut shaving stand and Mabel's favourite wing chair. One important donated item is the original melodeon (serial number 16265 of the George A. Prince Company) given to the Homestead museum by the granddaughter of Jenny Cowherd (who later became Mrs. Joseph Durnan). Jenny's father
1938-410: A telephone receiver, Alexander Graham Bell could not respond directly to his father, and instead replied back by telegraph on a separate line to Brantford. Nevertheless Alexander Graham much later declared that this was the first one-way long-distance call "of several miles", but noted it was "the first transmission at a distance, but it was not the first reciprocal (two-way) conversation over a line. That
2052-618: Is 44% owned by Bell. On April 30, 2007, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) announced its decision to allow pay phone rates for Bell Canada, Telus, Bell Aliant, SaskTel, and MTS Allstream to increase from 25 cents to 50 cents, starting as early as June 1. The CRTC also permitted local rural rates to increase by the lesser of the annual rate of inflation or five percent, and removed price caps on optional rural services, such as call display and voicemail. On June 2, 2007, Bell Canada increased
2166-609: Is headquartered at the Campus Bell complex in the borough of Verdun in Montreal. Bell Canada is one of the main assets of the holding company BCE Inc. , an abbreviation of its full name, Bell Canada Enterprises. In addition to the Bell Canada telecommunications properties, BCE also owns Bell Media (which operates mass media properties including the national CTV Television Network ) and holds significant interests in
2280-527: Is now closely identified with. Returning again to the Homestead the next summer in 1875 Bell wrote his first draft specifications of the telephone patent—commonly considered to be the most valuable patent in history—that September. He later built his first fully functional unit at Boston on March 10, 1876. Later that year, in August, Bell made the first successful voice transmission of any notable distance, between Brantford and Paris Ontario. On July 26, 1974,
2394-616: Is now known at the Homestead as the Henderson Home. The house, likely built in 1843, had been Burles' family home for some 44 years. At the time of its donation he was living there as a widower along with his daughter, his wife having died the previous December. The four bedroom structure had previously been the home and office of Reverend Thomas Henderson (1817-1887), the close friend, advisor and associate of Melville Bell and his son Alexander Graham. Henderson had persuaded Melville and his family to immigrate to Canada in 1870 to prevent
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#17328017690572508-518: Is surrounded by the territory of Northwestel , implying that the company that established service there was acquired by a company serving territories further south.) Although Bell Canada entered the Northwest Territories (NWT) with an exchange at Iqaluit (then known as Frobisher Bay, in the territory now known as Nunavut) in 1958, Canadian National Telecommunications, a subsidiary of Canadian National Railways (CNR), provided most of
2622-604: The Bell Telephone Memorial : I came to Brantford in 1870 to die; I was given six months lease of life, but I am glad to be alive today... As I look back upon it, visions come to me of the Grand River and of Tutela Heights and my dreaming place upon the heights where visions of the telephone came to my mind. Alexander Graham frequented his "dreaming place", lying on a roll of carpet with a pillow and his books. He would relax, think, and "... dream away
2736-467: The Contempra telephone produced by Bell Canada's affiliate equipment manufacturer, Nortel . In 1973 Bell Canada also later offered an "extensive and valuable" collection of telephone and telecommunications equipment on permanent loan for display in the museum. Renovations planned in the early 1970s time included the conversion of its ground floor into a telephone museum and its upper floor rooms into
2850-538: The Montreal Canadiens ice hockey club and Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment , owner of several Toronto professional sports franchises. BCE ranked number 301 on the 2021 edition of the Forbes Global 2000 list. Historically, Bell Canada has been one of Canada's most important and most powerful companies and, in 1975, was listed as the fifth largest in the country. The company is named after
2964-1037: The National Bell Telephone Company , formed in Boston, Massachusetts earlier that year by the merger of the Bell Telephone Company and the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company , which in 1880 reorganized as the American Bell Telephone Company, initiating the Bell System . That same year the Canadian division was renamed to "The Bell Telephone Company of Canada Ltd.", eventually to be headed by U.S. executive Charles Fleetford Sise from Chicago who served as its first general manager. The first supplier of telephones to Bell
3078-658: The National Research Council . The Post Office Department issued a stamp to mark Bell's birth centennial on March 3, 1947—a four-cent commemorative, featuring Bell's portrait crowned by an allegorical figure, Fame, standing on a globe showing much of North America. Telephone lines appear in the background. Another stamp honouring Bell was issued on March 17, 2000, as part of Canada Post's millennium collection, showing Bell working, surrounded by images of projects he worked on at Cape Breton (the Silver Dart,
3192-578: The Post Office Department released a commemorative postage stamp honouring the centennial of the invention of the telephone stating "At Brantford... Alexander Graham Bell, a young teacher of the deaf, spent a few weeks of leisurely contemplation and invented the telephone." The stamp depicts three telephones of various time periods, including his famous Gallows model, considered the world's first telephone. In 1915 Alexander Graham referred to it saying "The instrument, just as you see it here,
3306-475: The on-or-off transmission methods used by other telephone experimenters. Alexander Graham held lengthy discussions with his father explaining what he thought he could achieve with a sound-driven transmitter producing an electrical signal which would instantaneously travel an electrical circuit to a receiver at another location where it would be converted back to sound. His record of a discussion with his father in their home's living room, wrote "If I could vary
3420-614: The 2008 Beijing Olympics, Bell introduced a new logo and minimalist ad style, with the slogans "Today just got better" (with emphasis on the suffix " er ") in English Canada and "La vie est Bell" (a pun on "La vie est Belle" — French : life is beautiful ) in French Canada. The font used in Bell's marketing is a custom typeface known as 'Bell Slim', by Canadian typeface designer Ian Brignell. The financial performance of
3534-705: The 20th century Bell acquired most of the independent companies in Ontario and Quebec, most notably the purchase of Nexxlink Technologies, a Montreal-based integrated IT solutions and telecommunications provider founded by Karol Brassard. Alongside the acquisition of Charon Systems, Nexxlink now operates today as Bell Business Solutions—a division of Bell Canada. Quebec, however, still has large swaths of relatively rural areas served by Telus Québec (formerly Québec Telephone, later acquired by Telus ) and Télébec (now owned by Bell Canada via Bell Aliant) and by some 20 small independent companies. As of 1980, Ontario still had some 30 independent companies, and Bell has not acquired any;
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3648-468: The A. Wallis Ellis store in the neighbouring community of Mount Pleasant , listened to his uncle's voice emanating from his receiver housed in a metal box. Initially David Bell's voice couldn't be heard distinctly as "... all kinds and sizes of wire were used in stringing from the house to Mount Pleasant road". However, Walter Griffin, the Dominion Telegraph manager, decided to attach
3762-515: The Bell Homestead it was converted into an adjunct museum on the development of telephone technology . The Homestead is operated by the Bell Homestead Committee of the City of Brantford. The Homestead was named a National Historic Site on June 1, 1996, and was listed on the national Register of Historic Places on June 22, 2009. The replacement for a federal commemorative plaque was unveiled
3876-583: The Bell Homestead. To bring telephone signals to Melville House, Alexander Graham audaciously "bought up" and "cleaned up" the complete supply of stovepipe wire within Brantford. With the help of two of Melville's neighbours, E. McIntyre and Thomas Brooks, he tacked the stovepipe wire some 800 metres (a half mile) along the top of fence posts from his parents’ home to a junction point on the Mount Pleasant telegraph line, which joined that community to
3990-873: The Bell System in the United States; the regional operating company (Bell Canada) sold telephone services as a local exchange carrier, and Western Electric (Northern Electric) designed and manufactured telephone equipment. As part of the consent decree signed in 1956 to resolve the antitrust lawsuit filed in 1949 by the United States Department of Justice, AT&T and the Bell System proper divested itself of Northern Electric in 1956. In October 1973, AT&T and Bell Canada signed an agreement stating that AT&T would no longer furnish Bell System communications and research to Bell Canada. AT&T's at-the-time chairman John DeButts explained that
4104-625: The Bell family to immigrate to Canada. After a brief stay of only a few days with the Hendersons, the Bell family purchased a homestead of 5 1 ⁄ 4 hectares (13 acres) at Tutelo Heights (in the present day called Tutela Heights, named for the First Nations band that had previously settled the area), on the outskirts of Brantford , Ontario, for CA$ 2,600 (approximately CA$ 101,900 in current dollars ), with $ 2,100 being paid immediately. They were likely assisted in their search by
4218-516: The Bell family's arrival, writing that it was "... pleased to welcome to our town and neighbourhood A. Melville Bell, Esq., Professor of Elocution, of University College, London [...who...] has purchased from Robert Morton a property containing 10.5 acres of land with a good orchard, beautifully situated on the Mt. Pleasant road some two miles from Brantford". At their new home Melville's surviving son Alexander Graham Bell created his laboratory inside
4332-758: The British Isles their middle son Alexander Graham now appeared to be faltering from the same disease. Upon landing at Quebec City on 1 August 1870, the Bells transferred to another steamer to Montreal , and then took the Grand Trunk Railway to Paris, Ontario , residing at the parsonage of the Reverend Thomas Philip Henderson. Henderson was a Baptist minister and close family friend who likely went to school with Melville in Scotland, and who had previously invited
4446-537: The Canadian market until James Cowherd's untimely death from tuberculosis in 1881. With a government-granted monopoly on Canadian long-distance telephone service, The Bell Telephone Company of Canada was serving 237,000 subscribers by 1914. Since its early years The Bell Telephone Company of Canada, Ltd. had been known colloquially as "The Bell" or "Bell Telephone". On March 7, 1968, Canadian federal legislation renamed The Bell Telephone Company of Canada, Ltd. to Bell Canada. Bell Canada extended lines from Nova Scotia to
4560-490: The Canadian market. This order could not be fulfilled due to surging demand in the United States. For a few years, the senior Bell and his friend and business associate Reverend Thomas Philip Henderson collected royalties from the lease of telephones to customers in the limited late-1870s Canadian market, who either operated their own private telephone lines or subscribed to a third party telecommunications service provider . In 1879 Bell's father sold his Canadian rights to
4674-517: The Canadian successor to the phone company established by Melville with Reverend Henderson's assistance, after Alexander Graham gave his father 75% of the Canadian patent rights to the invention. The exhibits included a model of the nation's first telephone factory, a three-story building established by some of Bell's friends in Brantford, Thomas Cowherd and his son James. Other artifacts included telephone components, an original 'telephone exchange' or switchboard, and early model telephones leading up to
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4788-429: The Dominion Telegraph office in Brantford. Scientific American noted the test calls in their 9 September 1876 article, The Human Voice Transmitted by Telegraph. Historian Thomas Costain referred to them as "the three great tests of the telephone". One journalist wrote of them, "No one involved in these early calls could possibly have understood the future impact of these communication firsts". Melville House
4902-483: The Henderson Home with a historical marker plaque standing freely in front of the building (see photo above). Snow stated to an assembly of more than a hundred "This simple frame structure, less than 100 years ago, was the cradle of the telephone business.... The plaque pays tribute to a giant among inventors". Reverend Thomas Henderson was himself memorialized earlier in June 1954 at Perth, Ontario 's Elmwood Cemetery by
5016-466: The Home services to certain subscribers across Eastern Canada, this service can provide guaranteed download of 3 Gbit/s and upload speeds of 3 Gbit/s. In August 2019, the company announced it would cut roughly 200,000 households from a rural internet expansion program after a federal regulator lowered wholesale broadband prices that major telecom companies can charge smaller internet providers. In
5130-541: The Homestead hosted a live radio broadcast, with Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King addressing a dinner of invited guests. Speakers and guests included Alexander Graham's daughter, Mrs. David Fairchild and J.A.D. McCurdy of the Aerial Experiment Association , Transportation Minister Chevrier, Chancellor H.J. Cody of the University of Toronto and Dr. Jack Mackenzie , president of
5244-419: The Homestead in 1874, Alexander Graham continued to contemplate electrical sound reproduction while viewing the undulating surface of the Grand River from his "dreaming place". He postulated that "it would be possible to transmit sounds of any sort" by the continuous variation of the intensity of the electric current. This method of sound energy to electrical signal transduction was fundamentally different from
5358-537: The Homestead museum's curator, Brian Wood, viewed hundreds of letters written by the Bells at the Alexander Graham Bell Museum archive in Baddeck, Nova Scotia , and used those writings to determine the true layout of the Homestead and its farmhouse rooms during the family's tenure. The Bell Homestead eventually acquired many of the Bell letters between Alexander Graham and his mother, enabling
5472-413: The Homestead since 1921, assigned its own historian to head the Homestead's restoration committee in 1969. Bell Canada additionally built a caretaker's house on the site and helped finance other renovations and commemorative projects. Other improvements included a return to the home's original cream and green exterior paint scheme, as existed when the Bells lived there. Phase I and Phase II renovations of
5586-570: The Manitoba system, now known as Bell MTS , on March 17, 2017. British Columbia, served today by Telus , was served by numerous small companies that mostly amalgamated to form British Columbia Telephone, later known as BC Tel (the last known acquisition was the Okanagan Telephone Company in the late 1970s), which served the province from the 1960s until its merger with Telus. (The amalgamations produced one anomaly: Atlin
5700-648: The Maple Leaf Chapter of the Telephone Pioneers of America , Jack E. Skinner of the Bell Canada, Alderman Andrew Donaldson of the Bell Homestead Committee, Don J. Southcott of Northern Electric , Bell Telephone of Canada historian Robert Spencer, and Boston University Professor Robert V. Bruce , who was some two years away from the release of his definitive biography on the younger Bell (titled as Bell: Alexander Graham Bell and The Conquest of Solitude ). Bell Historian Robert Spencer provided
5814-603: The Melville House Museum. A third room, to the left of the front entrance on the ground floor, was not furnished and opened to the public until 1947. The Homestead and Melville House museum have developed special programs through the years, such as their Christmas holiday celebrations when the farmhouse is "... decorated in the style and traditions of Alexander Graham Bell's American wife Mabel, with stockings stuffed full of oranges and toy trinkets." Costumed interpreters and slide presentations also provide
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#17328017690575928-558: The Morton Hardware Store in Brantford. The elder Morton had purchased several hundred acres of land along the Grand River one year earlier from Margaret and Elizabeth Stewart at a cost of £183 (equivalent to approximately C$ 25,800 in 2012). The farmhouse was constructed amid towering elm trees, from hand-hewn lumber on a fieldstone foundation and finished with masonry stucco and lath work. Its architectural features included pine and wood pegged floors, walnut window trims,
6042-756: The Six Nations Reserve after their 1753 adoption into the Cayuga. Their longhouse was across the street from the Bell Homestead. Professor Alexander Melville Bell , a Scottish-born British authority on speech and elocution, immigrated to Canada by steamship in July 1870 with his family and daughter-in-law, who had been widowed by the death of Bell's eldest son from tuberculosis in May of that year. The family's youngest son Edward had similarly died of tuberculosis three years earlier, and during their departure from
6156-545: The Solo Mobile brand in 1999, Bell shut down all standalone Solo stores in 2011 while discontinuing third-party sales of all Solo phones in November 2011. The brand continues to be active for its current customers, but there are no incentives to encourage new subscriptions. Formerly known as ExpressVu, Bell Satellite TV is a satellite television service provider. There is also a mobile TV service, Bell Mobile TV , and
6270-700: The United Kingdom via Bell Cablemedia plc (a joint venture with Jones Intercable and Cable & Wireless plc ) from 1994 until 1997, when Vidéotron first sold its UK operations to Bell Cablemedia, after which Bell Cablemedia and the UK operations of NYNEX Corporation merged with Cable & Wireless plc to form Cable & Wireless Communications . Bell Canada created the Frank and Gordon beavers to advertise its products from 2006 to 2008. Coinciding with its advertising campaign as part of its sponsorship of
6384-432: The United States under the title of "Improvement In Telegraphy" ( U.S. patent 174,465 ). His device later adopted the name now used worldwide, the telephone . Bell also patented it in Canada and transferred 75% of the Canadian patent rights to his father, Alexander Melville Bell , with the remaining 25% being awarded to Boston telephone manufacturer Charles Williams Jr. in exchange for 1,000 telephones to be provided to
6498-473: The acquisition of Bay Networks. Bell Canada acquired 100 percent of Northern Electric in 1964; starting in 1973, Bell's ownership stake in Northern Electric was diminished through public stock offerings, though it retained majority control. In 1983, as a result of deregulation, Bell Canada Enterprises (later shortened to BCE ) was formed as the parent company to Bell Canada and Northern Telecom. As
6612-502: The advance efforts of Reverend Henderson, who was also employed as a school board inspector. At the time of the Bell family's departure from the UK, Alexander Graham's health was threateningly poor, with "a chest condition... giving cause for concern" and his tall, broad-framed body being reduced to 59 kg (130 lb), leaving his face gaunt. The city's largest newspaper, the Brantford Expositor , soon announced
6726-598: The afternoon in luxurious idleness" while also contemplating the undulating ripples of the Grand River below him. The younger Bell continued his previous interest in the study of the human voice, and when he discovered the Six Nations Reserve across the river at Onondaga , he learned the Mohawk language and translated its unwritten vocabulary into Visible Speech symbols, a written scientific vocabulary invented by his father. For his work Alexander Graham earned
6840-420: The assembly with a detailed description of the three phases of restoration that was then underway at the Homestead. After the Henderson Home was transferred to its new Homestead location in 1969 it was then renovated and converted to a telephone museum, with exhibits of early telephone and switchboard technology stretching back to the 1880s. The museum's exhibits were developed in cooperation with Bell Canada ,
6954-400: The bedrooms. Amidst all these homey little touches, are some of the Bell family's possessions, which serve as a clue to the kind of clever, inventive mind that thrived in these surroundings. In the parlor hangs a trompe-l'œil print of Saint Cecilia that looks as if it has been framed behind broken glass.... Just as bizarre is the stuffed duck-billed platypus which sits in the study among
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#17328017690577068-594: The bluffs with pilings to prevent further erosion in the early 1920s—attempts which were unsuccessful. The Bell Homestead Museum first opened to the public in October 1910 with two rooms available for viewing, and over several decades repurchased or received donations of much of the Bell family's original home furnishings, including its cabinetry, furniture and piano-like melodeon , eventually comprising 90% of their Melville House furnishings. Further donations from Bell family descendants also included books, china, paintings,
7182-439: The books and telephone wires. It was brought from Australia in 1874 by visiting relatives who must have thought it just the right sort of offbeat souvenir for the Bells. Overall, the journalist noted: A pretty white home surrounded by shade trees and flower beds may not be the popular idea of the kind of place where a creative genius lives, especially someone who advised people to "leave the beaten track occasionally and dive into
7296-608: The business office of Canada's first telephone company. In 1969 the house was carefully raised onto a flatbed mover and relocated from Brantford's downtown area (at 30, formerly 46 Sheridan Street, approximately three city blocks from the Bell Telephone Memorial ), to the Homestead site where it was renovated to serve as a telephone company museum. The house had been donated in October 1968 by its then-owner, William C. Burles (born in Bath, England, 1885, eighteen years after Alexander Graham taught there at its Somersetshire College), and it
7410-534: The campaign was meant to also transfer the caretaker's residence from the upper level of Melville House to the upper level of the Henderson Home to allow for the complete restoration of the farmhouse to its original condition when the Bells resided there. However an extra $ 60,000 of funding became available for the construction of a new caretaker's cottage, described as "a typical little Ontario house with two bedrooms", as well as new public washroom facilities. The Homestead's curator, Mr. C. E. Studier, and his wife were at
7524-468: The city's telephone exchange was installed. A telephone line was also installed to the city's telegraph office. On 9 August 1970, Ontario Lieutenant Governor William Ross Macdonald , aided by the home's former owner William Burles, officially opened the Henderson House before an invited assembly of distinguished guests and notables, including Brantford Mayor Richard Beckett , Robert W. Gray of
7638-717: The company is reported to shareholders on an annual basis. The unit (except where noted) is millions of Canadian dollars. Bell Homestead National Historic Site#Henderson Home The Bell Homestead National Historic Site , located in Brantford , Ontario , Canada, also known by the name of its principal structure, Melville House , was the first North American home of Professor Alexander Melville Bell and his family, including his last surviving son, scientist Alexander Graham Bell . The younger Bell conducted his earliest experiments in North America there, and later invented
7752-649: The cost of a local pay phone call to 50 cents when paid in cash and one dollar when paid by calling card or credit card, Bell's first increase in pay phone rates since 1981. In 2009, Bell Canada purchased electronics retailer The Source and all other assets of InterTAN Canada Ltd. from bankrupt Circuit City . Bell has deployed MPLS on their nationwide fibre ring network to support consumer and enterprise-level IP applications, such as IPTV and VoIP . On March 17, 2017, BCE Inc. completed its acquisition of Manitoba Telecom Services . Bell Canada has faced controversy and scandal. In late 2011, Bell Canada admitted to
7866-676: The death of his last son Alexander Graham, who was being consumed by disease. Melville Bell appointed Henderson as his phone company's general agent "for the Dominion of Canada" after Melville received 75% of the phone's Canadian patent rights from his son in 1877. Henderson faithfully served Melville's company from 1877 until 1880, when he became an employee of the Bell Telephone Company of Canada (later Bell Canada) at their Montreal headquarters. Henderson served Bell in Montreal until his death in 1888. Henderson also supervised
7980-660: The early 1970s along with the house's verandah and chimneys. The property, which borders the Grand River , originally contained an approximate 4-hectare (10.5 acres) fruit orchard, large farmhouse, stable, pigsty, henhouse, icehouse and a carriage house . During the Bells' 11-year residence at the Homestead, the working farm, with its plum, cherry, pear, apple and peach orchards, supplemented Melville's modest income from dramatic readings at elocutionary performances and university lectures on elocution and vocal physiology . Moreover, college lecture assignments were scarce for
8094-548: The early 1970s included the transfer of the Henderson Home from downtown Brantford to its new foundation at the homestead and its conversion into a museum, plus the restoration of Melville House's ground floor, and the rebuilding of the greenhouse conservatory that had been removed during the 1920s (likely when the farmhouse was moved 25 metres away from the eroding bluffs overlooking the Grand River). The house's verandah and chimneys were also rebuilt at that time. Phase III of
8208-530: The early 20th century, then in the early 1970s (in three phases in preparation for the centennial of the telephone's invention) as well as in 1994, and finally in the late 1990s to revert changes made at the Homestead by its subsequent owners after Alexander Graham's parents departed in 1881. Later restorations were also meant to provide the home with a more authentic and less museum-like experience. The Bell Telephone Company of Canada (renamed to Bell Canada in 1968), which had provided financial and other support to
8322-434: The elder Bell addressed the invited banquet guests, saying "[Our son] could not come to us, so we resolved to go to him. I now confidently feel that my sojourn in Brantford will outlive my existence because under yon roof of mine the telephone was born". The two story white framed clapboard home of Reverend Thomas Philip Henderson (b. Scotland, 1816 – d. 1887), served as his combined residence and religious library as well as
8436-427: The family and to the invention of the telephone . A large visitor reception centre has also been added adjacent to Melville House. The Henderson Home building was later added to the Homestead in 1969, being moved there from its original location in downtown Brantford. It was Canada's first telephone company business office, opened in 1877 as a predecessor of the Bell Telephone Company of Canada . After being moved to
8550-406: The farm's converted carriage house , nearby to what he called his "dreaming place", a large hollow nestled in the elm trees at the back of the property, above the river where he could view its surface. Despite his frail condition upon arriving in Canada, Alexander Graham found the climate and environs to his liking, and he rapidly improved, regaining his health. He later related at the unveiling of
8664-457: The following year by Queen Elizabeth II during the 150th anniversary year celebrations for the birth of Alexander Graham Bell. Melville House has been described as "... this shrine, where lingers the spirit of the great inventor". The Bell Homestead period began with the arrival of the Bell family in the summer of 1870 from their native Scotland, where two of their sons had died of tuberculosis and their middle son, Alexander Graham Bell ,
8778-629: The foot of the Rocky Mountains in what is now Alberta. However, most of the attention given to meeting demand for service focused on major cities in Ontario, Quebec, and the Maritime Provinces . During the late 19th century, Bell sold its Atlantic operations in the three Maritime provinces, where many small independent companies also operated and eventually came under the ownership of three provincial companies. Newfoundland and Labrador joined Canada with several private companies, and
8892-520: The homestead in 2003 included work on its carriage house, pantry and scullery , as well as the development of a master plan for the entire complex. During an elaborate public ceremony before a crowd numbering in the thousands, the Homestead and the Bell Telephone Memorial were both formally presented to the City of Brantford on Wednesday, October 24, 1917, by Victor Cavendish , the Duke of Devonshire , then Governor General of Canada . A city-wide holiday
9006-413: The independent companies. Having achieved a high level of development, Manitoba moved to privatize its telephone utility and Alberta privatized Alberta Government Telephones to create Telus in the 1990s. Saskatchewan continues to own SaskTel as a crown corporation .Edmonton was served by a city-owned utility, Edmonton Telephones Corporation, that was sold to Telus in 1995. BCE re-gained ownership of
9120-422: The intensity of the electric current in exact proportion to the variation of the air density in the production of words, I would be able to transmit speech by telegraph" (using the telephone's technical analog, the telegraph , as the former name had not yet been adapted). On 26 July 1874 in their living room the younger Bell realized the technical principles of telephony, inventing the telecommunications device he
9234-604: The inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell , who also co-founded Bell Telephone Company in Boston, Massachusetts. Bell Canada operated as the Canadian subsidiary of the Bell System from 1880 to 1975. However, unlike the other regional Bell operating companies, Bell Canada had its own research and development labs. In the mid-1870s Alexander Graham Bell , who was Scottish-born but lived in Canada, invented an analogue electromagnetic telecommunication device that could simultaneously transmit and receive human speech. In March 1876 he successfully patented his invention in
9348-517: The local infrastructure can support. Bell began offering Fibre-to-the-node Internet access to some subscribers in 2010. Bell markets this service under the name "Fibe". Many urban Fibe regions can access all speeds up to and including 50+mbps down and 15+mbps up but some rural Fibe regions can only obtain 16 Mbit/s down and 1 Mbit/s up. Non-Fibe regions are limited to legacy DSL technology, supporting speeds of up to 7 Mbit/s down and 1 Mbit/s up. Bell Canada has now rolled out Fibre to
9462-543: The main reason for this was because Bell Canada had developed its own research and development lab ( Bell-Northern Research ), making Bell Canada ready to serve its Canadian landline customers on its own. As a result, AT&T divested Bell Canada on June 30, 1975. Even though Bell Canada had been divested, it was allowed to participate in Bell System projects which could be completed shortly after its divestiture date. Northern Electric renamed itself Northern Telecom in 1976, which in turn became Nortel Networks in 1998 with
9576-516: The male Bells as the nearest university was in Toronto, some 105 km (65 miles) away. The Bell family was not well-to-do, but upper-middle class, and depended on the sales of their farm products to make ends meet. After Melville sold the homestead to Matthew Whiting in 1881 to join his son in Washington, D.C., the handsome farmhouse and property changed ownership five more times until it
9690-491: The museum to accurately recreate the Homestead as it existed during the period of Melville's ownership. In 2002 the Homestead converted its former caretaker's cottage into a tea room cum café, launched on 2 July as the Bell Homestead Café at a cost of approximately $ 56,000 in order to serve hot meals and fresh baked goods to visitors, with its staff dressed in period-era costumes. Further renovations planned for
9804-1063: The parent company of NBTel in 1966. The purchase of MT&T was made despite efforts of the Nova Scotia legislature on September 10, 1966, to limit the voting power of any shareholder to 1000 votes. Bell-owned MT&T absorbed some 120 independent companies, most serving fewer than 50 customers each. Bell-owned NewTel purchased the CNR-owned Terra Nova Tel in 1988. In the late 1990s, Newtel, Bruncorp, MT&T and Island Tel merged into Aliant, now Bell Aliant which owns many services in rural areas of Ontario and Quebec formerly owned by Bell Canada. On January 1, 2011, Bell acquired xwave from Bell Aliant for $ 40 million, an information technology company offering sales and services in Atlantic Canada. Independent companies appeared in many areas of Ontario, Quebec and Maritime provinces without adequate Bell Canada service. During
9918-480: The prairies had been scant or insufficient relative to growth, and all three had various local telephone companies. The Alberta government's Alberta Government Telephones Commission and Manitoba Government Telephones purchased the Bell operations of their provinces in 1908. Saskatchewan's Department of Railways, Telegraphs and Telephones, established in June 1908, purchased the Bell operations on October 1, 1909; all three provinces' government operations eventually acquired
10032-967: The provinces of Ontario and Quebec ; as such, it was a founding member of the Stentor Alliance . It is also a CLEC (competitive local exchange carrier) for enterprise customers in the western provinces. Its subsidiary Bell Aliant provides services in the Atlantic provinces . It provides mobile service through its Bell Mobility (including flanker brand Virgin Plus ) subsidiary, and television through its Bell Satellite TV ( direct broadcast satellite ) and Bell Fibe TV ( IPTV ) subsidiaries. Bell Canada's principal competitors are Rogers Communications in Ontario and Western Canada, Telus in Quebec and Western Canada, and Quebecor ( Videotron ) in Quebec. The company serves over 13 million phone lines and
10146-399: The public with a more personal and comprehensive experience. They have additionally earned plaudits for their dedication to authenticity, with one reviewer writing: Although the house is kept as a historic site, it has a comfortable look of habitation about it. Freshly pressed, embroidered linens hang on the side of the bathtub, a basket of needlework waits to be completed and clothes hang in
10260-455: The receiver "clearly and strongly", on a telegraph line connection of some 106 km (66 miles) length. Speaking to his son in Paris from Brantford's Dominion Telegraph office, Professor Alexander Melville Bell sang songs, quoted Shakespeare and read poetry. In Paris, news of Bell's test quickly drew crowds of onlookers who witnessed Melville's voice emanating from the crude metal box. With only
10374-443: The smaller ones were sold to larger independents with larger capital resources. Cellcom Communications is the largest franchisee of Bell Canada, currently operating 25 Bell stores in both Québec and Ontario regions. At separate times, the three Prairie provinces acquired Bell Canada operations and formed provincial utility services, investing to develop proper telephone services throughout those provinces; Bell Canada's investment in
10488-442: The summer. The third and most important test was the world's first true long-distance call, placed between Brantford and Paris, Ontario , on 10 August 1876. For that long-distance call Alexander Graham Bell set up a telephone using telegraph lines at Robert White's Boot and Shoe Store at 90 Grand River Street North in Paris via its Dominion Telegraph Co. office on Colborne Street. The normal telegraph line between Paris and Brantford
10602-575: The telegraph line to a battery to see if it would improve the transmission, which it did, and "the voices then came in distinctly." That first Brantford call was followed the next day on 4 August during another call between Brantford's telegraph office and Melville House when a large dinner party, including members of the Cowherd family who would later manufacture phones for Bell in Canada's first telephone factory, provided "... .speech, recitations, songs and instrumental music" that were transmitted to
10716-473: The telephone at the Homestead in July 1874. In a 1906 speech to the Brantford Board of Trade, Bell commented on the telephone's invention: "the telephone problem was solved, and it was solved at my father's home". The approximately 4-hectare (10 1 ⁄ 2 acre) site has been largely restored to its appearance when the Bells lived there in the 1870s, and Melville House now serves as a museum to
10830-486: The telephone industry in Canada: Bell Canada as a regional operating company (affiliated with AT&T , with an ownership stake of approximately 39%) and Northern Electric as an equipment manufacturer (affiliated with Western Electric , with an ownership stake of approximately 44%). The Bell Telephone Company of Canada and Northern Electric were structured similarly in Canada to the analogous portions of
10944-667: The telephone manufacturing being conducted at the Brantford telephone factory run by Bell's friend James Cowherd , son of the Brantford's hardware store owner Thomas C. Cowherd who had supplied the Alexander Graham with almost all of the stovepipe wire available, used for his Bell's first telephone line. Cowherd's Brantford factory's first shipment of nineteen telephones was made to Hugh Cossart Baker in Hamilton, Ontario on 23 December of that year, with total production of all orders eventually reaching 2,398 phones before James
11058-470: The telephone service in Canada's northern territories (specifically, Yukon, northern BC and the western NWT). CNR created Northwestel in 1979, and Bell Canada Enterprises acquired the company in 1988 as a wholly owned subsidiary. Bell Canada sold its 22 exchanges in the eastern region of the NWT to Northwestel in 1992, and BCE transferred ownership of the company to Bell Canada in 1999. Northwestel's operating area
11172-466: The telephone's invention, during which visitor admissions to the Homestead totaled some 100,000 people. Restoration and new facilities work progressed across the Homestead through the years. In 2005 its carriage house was dismantled and the rebuilt in 2007 at a cost of $ 75,000. The mid-1980s saw the expansion of the Homestead's general facilities, including a new visitor's reception centre and mini-theatre added for slide and movie presentations. In 1998
11286-417: The time residing on the upper level of Melville House. Plans were also being drawn up then to renovate the coach house which was then providing the food and drink concessions area for visitors. Also under consideration was a possible larger telecommunications museum of a national stature. Considerable efforts were made to have the phased renovations completed in time for the 1974 centennial year celebrations of
11400-690: The tribe's friendship and was awarded the title of Honorary Chief and participated in a ceremony where he donned a Mohawk headdress and performed traditional dances. Thereafter Bell would break into a Mohawk war dance if he became intensely excited. After setting up his laboratory–workshop in the Homestead's carriage house, the younger Bell also continued his earlier electrical experiments based on misunderstood translations of Dr. Hermann von Helmholtz 's work on electricity and sound as described in Die Lehre von den Tonempfindungen als physiologische Grundlage für die Theorie der Musik ( The Sensations of Tone as
11514-428: The woods." Yet Alexander Graham Bell's Homestead in Brantford presents a dignified picture of middle class bliss. Melville House and the Homestead, visited by over a million people from numerous countries around the world, has been described as "... this shrine, where lingers the spirit of the great inventor". At a farewell dinner at Brantford's Kerby House as Melville was preparing to depart for Washington, D.C.,
11628-532: Was Thomas Cowherd , whose hardware store supplied stovepipe wire to Graham Bell, and her brother was James, who built almost 2,400 telephones for Melville's telephone company and for the Bell Telephone Company of Canada . Jenny also played the melodeon and sang for at least one of Alexander Graham's telephone demonstrations. Many of the items had originally been sold at auction in 1881 by Melville's family when he and his wife moved to join their son Alexander Graham in Washington, D.C., much later being donated back to
11742-516: Was a company established by Thomas C. Cowherd and his son James H. Cowherd, in a three-storey brick building in Brantford, Ontario , creating Canada's first telephone factory. Thomas and James had been good friends of Alexander Graham Bell, providing stovepipe wire with which Bell conducted his early telephone experiments from his father's home in Tutelo Heights, Ontario , and also building some 2,398 telephones to Bell's specifications for
11856-514: Was acquired in 1909 by the Bell Telephone Memorial Association, which at the time was collecting funds to build a major memorial to both Alexander Graham and to the invention of the telephone, the Bell Telephone Memorial . In 1910 Melville House became a museum dedicated to the Bell family, including both Melville and Alexander, and to Alexander Graham's invention of the telephone there in July 1874. The Homestead
11970-514: Was additionally stricken and being consumed by disease. The Bell Homestead complex in the present day consists of several buildings with their own origins. The principal building at the site is Alexander Melville Bell's farmhouse, Melville House, along with its related greenhouse conservatory, outbuildings and fruit orchard. The farmhouse and its farmland were acquired for preservation as a museum in 1909. The Henderson Home, which had served as Canada's first telephone business office in downtown Brantford,
12084-423: Was declared on that day in honour of the event. Several commemorations have been held at the Homestead honouring the 1874 invention of the telephone at the site by their son, Alexander Graham Bell, the Bell family themselves, and other events related to the Bell System . In 1997 Queen Elizabeth II visited the Homestead and unveiled a commemorative plaque, reflecting its National Historic Site status. In 1947
12198-482: Was deeded by the Association to the City of Brantford in 1917, with restoration of the home to its earlier condition taking several decades. In 1925 it was moved 80 feet (24 m) closer to Tutela Heights Road onto a new foundation further from the Grand River due to the continuing erosion of the tall river bank adjacent to the farmhouse. This was done only after the City of Brantford had attempted to stabilize
12312-542: Was held in Boston on 9 October 1876. Nonetheless, the third test in Southern Ontario was the world's first long-distance call, proving that the telephone was useful not only over short distances. On a test call one week earlier on 3 August 1876, Alexander Graham's uncle, Professor David Charles Bell , spoke to him from the Brantford telegraph office, reciting lines from Shakespeare 's Hamlet (" To be or not to be.... "). The young inventor, positioned at
12426-798: Was in 2001 opened to long-distance competition (which has materialized only in the form of prepaid card business, and service to large national customers with some operating locations in the north) and in 2007 to resale of local telephone service (which has not yet occurred). Northern British Columbia, northeastern Ontario and the James Bay region of northern Quebec were served by independent companies, though Bell Canada eventually provided service in more far-flung reaches of Ontario and Quebec, acquired ownership interests in companies serving large swaths of northwestern Quebec and northeastern Ontario, and in Northwestel. The Bell System had two main companies in
12540-549: Was invented in the summer of 1874, during a visit I paid to my father and mother in Brantford ..." As well, one of the first successful voice transmission of any notable distance (6 km) was made on 4 August 1876, between the telegraph office in Brantford, Ontario and Melville House over makeshift wires. Only a few months after receiving U.S. Patent No. 174465 at the beginning of March 1876, Bell conducted three important tests of his new telephone invention and technology after he returned to his parents at Melville House for
12654-413: Was later moved to the site in 1969 and renovated extensively in 1970, to convert it into a separate telephone museum under the principal sponsorship of the county's largest telephone carrier, Bell Canada . As well, a tea house , a visitor reception centre with a mini audio-video theatre and related facilities were also added to the homestead to accommodate visitors and tour groups. The Tutelo migrated to
12768-536: Was not quite 13 km (8 miles) length, but the connection was extended a further 93 km (58 miles) to Toronto to allow the use of a battery in its telegraph office . When the line connections were completed Graham Bell heard "... explosive sounds, like the discharge of artillery.... mixed with a continuous crackling noise of an indescribable character". Bell began to troubleshoot his device and after changing his telephone receiver's electromagnet from low to high resistance , voices suddenly emerged from
12882-402: Was stricken with tuberculosis and died. Henderson later moved to Montreal to join the Bell Telephone Company of Canada where he became their purchasing agent and storekeeper until his death in 1887. In September 1877 the Bells' installed a 5 1 ⁄ 4 km (3 1 ⁄ 4 mile) telephone line from their homestead to connect to Reverend Henderson's house in downtown Brantford where
12996-407: Was the name given to his home by the elder Bell, and which was used on the letterhead of his stationery, reading in full: "Melville House, Tutelo Hights". The large 10-room, two story wooden neoclassical Italianate villa style farmhouse was originally built in 1858 for Robert Morton, a retired Montreal building contractor who moved to the area to be close to his two sons Andrew and Y.J., owners of
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