Telecommunications

January 8, 1982

The US Department of Justice and AT&T finalize a settlement under which AT&T agrees to divest itself of twenty-two subdivisions, to take effect January 1, 1984.

January 7, 1927

The first commercial transatlantic phone service was made available to the public. It used radio signals rather than the undersea cable or satellite technology of today. 31 calls were made between New York and London that day.

January 6, 1838

Samuel Morse’s telegraph system is demonstrated for the first time at the Speedwell Iron Works in Morristown, New Jersey. The telegraph revolutionized long-distance communications, reaching the height of popularity in the 1920’s and 1930’s. It was slowly replaced by the telephone, faxing, and e-mail, however, it wasn’t until January 2006 that Western Union, perhaps the most famous “telegram” company, sent its last telegraph.

January 5, 2010

The Nexus One phone goes on sale. While not the first Android phone, it was the first phone to be branded and marketed directly by Google. In fact, it was available for purchase directly from Google’s web store for about 7 months after launch.

January 3, 1996

Motorola introduces the StarTAC, the first clamshell flip cell phone. The smallest and lightest cell phone available at the time, the StarTAC’s “wearability” made it one of the first cell phones to achieve mainstream popularity. About 60 million StarTAC phones were sold over the series’ lifetime, becoming the stereotype for what most people refer to as “flip phones,” even to this day.

January 1, 1984

The original American Telephone & Telegraph Company is divested of its 22 Bell System companies as a result of the settlement of the 1974 United States Department of Justice antitrust suit against AT&T.

December 30, 1899

American Bell, at the time parent corporation of the AT&T company, reorganizes and transfers its assets into AT&T. American Bell was incorporated in Massachusetts and AT&T was incorporated in New York. Massachusetts corporate laws would have limited the growth of American Bell so by reorganizing, AT&T could bypass Massachusetts law by becoming the parent company of American Bell and the Bell System. Eventually AT&T would become a legalized monopoly in the United States.

December 14, 1902

The cable ship Silvertown begins laying the first Transpacific telegraph cable from San Francisco, destined for Honolulu, Hawaii. After laying 2,227 nautical miles of cable, the Silvertown will land in Honolulu on January 1, 1903. Public messages will begin transmitting on January 5.

A push-button TouchTone phone from 1963. Note the missing * and # keys. They were not introduced until 1968.

November 18, 1963

Bell Telephone offers the first electronic push-button telephones to customers in Carnegie and Greensburg, Pennsylvania. Dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) technology (Touch-Tone) was also introduced on the same day in order to accommodate the new push-button telephones.

November 13, 1851

Laid by British telegraphic engineer John Watkins Brett and his brother Jacob Brett, the world’s first operational underwater telegraph cable opens for business. Connecting the English city of Dover to the French city of Calais, the cable was ran at the narrowest point of the English channel. With this link, communication between London and Paris was made possible.