August 21, 2009
Beginning the weekend of August 22nd, we will be
updating the Bell Operating Companies pages to reflect more recent and
updated information, which will
include more logos to reflect
the Bell Telephone Companies that are now part of
Qwest, AT&T and Verizon.
There will also be a more interactive side to these
pages as well, which will
include current "about us" and "products and services"
so that you can see what the successors to Alexander
Graham Bell's legacy
are offering. The Bell
Canada site listed here will also be updated to reflect the new
information relating to Canadian offerings. When you get a chance,
take a look.
August 12, 2009
The Historical Phone Company Financials site has been
revamped to include new financial information from other Bell companies, plus
the recently insolvent Nortel Networks. Click
here
to view the reports.
August 8, 2009
The new SYSTIMAX Solutions site is now available.
Click SYSTIMAX to view
the new site, which is dedicated to the employees who manufacture the high
quality product that comes out of each their facilities and also to those
installers who support American manufactured voice and data network cabling and
information outlet products. This site has samples of some of the history
of SYSTIMAX, and also supports current documentation for the new line of
products that SYSTIMAX manufactures. We have also included important
links, manufacturing locations, contact information, and where to purchase
SYSTIMAX. SYSTIMAX is truly American, and now more than ever, we need to
support what little manufacturing is left in our country. If you are an
end user, insist that your installer use only SYSTIMAX. If you are an
installer, insist on doing what is right and use only SYSTIMAX. Not only
is SYSTIMAX using Western Electric heritage and quality, but they are also producing
their products in America.
August 7, 2009
AT&T, Inc. and Bell Canada announce that both companies will
have a wireless roaming agreement for each of their respective customers when
roaming in each companies wireless footprint.
Click
at&Bell to view
the report. Interesting to note that in the article, someone took the
time to combine the at&t and Bell logo to signify the new agreement.
May 2, 2009
New photos have been added to the site. The first is of
the
Burlington Western Electric Plant from 1951,
1, and the other is of BellSouth Services,
2.
March 20, 2009
The 2008 AT&T Annual Reports have been added to the
AT&T Historical Financials. Click
2008 to view
the report.
January 29, 2009
More pages have been given a face lift. Click
Bell System History,
The Day the Bell System Died, and
Bell System Advertisements to
view the the new pages.
January 25, 2009
Some old pages have been given a face lift. Click
AT&T Divestiture,
Automatic Answering Service,
Bell System Property -
Not For Sale,
Bell Chime and
Bell Operating Companies to
view the the new pages.
November 1 , 2008
Starting on November 2nd, a rare collection of Western
Electric handset cords that were part of the last batch manufactured in Phoenix,
Arizona before the plant was shut down goes up for auction on eBay. Many of the
colors are the hard-to-find white and black and these are U.S. manufactured
cords! Proceeds will go to help fund The Bell System Memorial web site.
Click
eBay to view the store of items.
October 9, 2008
The 1986 AT&T Annual Report has been added to the
AT&T Historical Financials. Click
1986 to view
the report.
October 8, 2008
The new SYSTIMAX Solutions Catalog is now available.
Click SYSTIMAX to view
the catalog. SYSTIMAX was once known as AT&T Network Systems and the
bulk of their products are still manufactured in the U.S.A. in Omaha, Nebraska
at the old Western Electric facility. So, if you are in telecommunications
and use phone jacks, face plates, computer patch cords, patch panels, telephone
and computer/data wire, but are not aware that our country still makes these
things, then look no further than SYSTIMAX and start supporting American made
products and send a message to China that their chemical infested garbage will
no longer be tolerated on the American telecommunications network.
American jobs are at stake, and everyone can do their part.
October 6, 2008
The 1989 AT&T Annual Report has been added to the
AT&T Historical Financials. Click
1989 to view
the report.
September 29, 2008
The 1902 and 1903 AT&T Annual Reports have been added to the
AT&T Historical Financials. Click
1902 and
1903 to view
the reports.
September 29, 2008
BCE Inc. (Bell Canada
Enterprises) introduced a new logo on August 7, 2008. Click
here to view the new logos for Bell Canada. Also, to view the
BCE News Release announcing the launching of the new logo, click
here.
September 28, 2008
Ok, after a long hiatus of no updates to the Bell System Memorial web site,
we are now going to periodically get back to posting some new materials and
update the site like we promised.
The 2006 and 2007 AT&T Annual Reports have been added to the
AT&T Historical Financials. Click
2006 and
2007
to view the report. No longer will Avaya, Inc. financials be added to the
AT&T Historical Financials section, as TPG Capital and Silver Lake Partners,
acquired Avaya, Inc. for $8.2 billion on November 9th 2007. Agere
Systems Inc. was acquired by LSI Corporation on April 2nd 2007 for $4
billion and will also be omitted for future listings. Finally, Lucent
Technologies, Inc. merged with Alcatel of France which occurred on April
26th 2006 and thus ended the ten year independence of Lucent, and the
combined Alcatel-Lucent will not be in the AT&T Historical Financials
section. It must be noted that for those who do not remember, Avaya
and Agere were both part of Lucent, and Lucent in turn was part of AT&T.
Listed briefly is a historical breakdown:
-1881: Western Electric becomes the manufacturing arm of AT&T and is also
the purchasing agent for the Bell System.
-1925: Bell Laboratories was formed by merging the Western Electric Research
Laboratories, which was created in 1907, with the Engineering Department of
AT&T.
-1983: AT&T Technologies, Inc. created as a result of Bell System
divestiture that will occur on January 1, 1984, and assumes the well known
corporate charter of Western Electric Company.
-1996: AT&T Technologies, Inc. was renamed Lucent Technologies, Inc. and was
completely spun-off from AT&T. Bell Laboratories went with the Lucent
spin-off, with AT&T retaining only the part of Bell Laboratories that
pertained to communications research, which AT&T calls AT&T Laboratories.
-2000: Lucent in April sold their Consumer Products division to VTech
Consumer Phone Services. The Business Systems division was spun-off to
become Avaya, Inc., and June saw the microelectronics division spun-off into
Agere Systems. (Lucent retains Bell Laboratories).
-2006: April saw lucent itself merger with longtime competitor Alcatel.
Recently, we now have some new additions for the AT&T
Historical Financials section that will included the 1902, 1903, 1904, 1905,
1906, 1910 and 1912 AT&T Annual Reports.
December 21, 2007
Finally, after thirteen months of trying to transfer the
bellsystemmemorial.com domain from
IPOWERWEB, today it is now unified with the family of
Porticus domain names. Thank you to David Massey for putting pressure on
IPOWERWEB to release the domain name. All we can say about IPOWERWEB is
that their customer service is not very responsive and has caused nothing but
aggravation and wasted time in attempting to get something that should be
relatively simple to accomplish. But all that said, we welcome back
bellsystemmemorial.com to the family.
June 30, 2007
BCE (Bell Canada Enterprises)
Reaches Definitive Agreement to be Acquired By Investor Group Led by Teachers,
Providence and Madison - BCE Board Recommends Shareholders Accept C$42.75
(US$40.13) Per Share Offer.
This marks the end of an era for an
Independent Bell Canada, a company that traces its roots back to days of the
Bell System and Melville and Alexander Graham Bell.
Click here
to read the official BCE news release.
June 24, 2007
The 1983 No. 3/4 Special Commemorative Issue of the Bell
Telephone Magazine is finally up on the site. This was the last published
before the divesture of the Bell System
Click here
to see the issue in the original format.
June 16, 2007
The Bell Canada page has been updated with the new format.
Click
here
to see the new changes.
June 10, 2007
The Retirees Information page has been updated with new links
and information. Also, those of you who used to work for the equipment
side of the Bell System might find the following news article of interest.
For the more than 300 people who packed a hall in
the Bossier Civic Center on Saturday, the line never stopped at Shreveport's
landmark high-tech manufacturing plant on Mansfield Road.
May 14, 2007
Two sections to the Bell System Memorial site have been
updated with the new look. The Trading Post and the Yellow Pages have been
re-configured with new information and old information deleted. Work will
begin in the coming weeks to finally scan and upload the 1983 No. 3-4 Bell
Telephone Magazine and additional AT&T Annual Reports.
March 12, 2007
The 1911 and 1913 AT&T Annual Reports have been added to the
AT&T Historical Financials.
Click here
to view the reports. Also, we now have the 1983 No. 2 issue of Bell
Telephone Magazine which has much information about the preparation for
divestiture of the Bell System and the new designated RBOC regions. Many
thanks to Jeff Charles for his allowing us to scan the original magazine and add
it to our digital archive. Jeff also provided the copy of the 1983 No.
3-4, which will be added once it has been scanned and converted to pdf.
The Bell Telephone Magazine sub-site has been updated to the new look and the
1983 No. 2 magazine is in its original colour format with pictures and all.
Click here to
see the new sub-site and magazine.
February 6, 2007
The 1908 and 1909 AT&T Annual Reports have been added to the
AT&T Historical Financials. Click
here
to view the reports.
January 30, 2007
After many months of having put aside scanning the AT&T
Annual Reports from 1907 onwards, the American Telephone & Telegraph Annual
Report for 1907 has been scanned and converted to pdf.
Click here
to view the report. A new and quicker method of scanning has been used and
will hopefully result in more reports and documents being uploaded.
December 2006
This month has been quite busy with preparing for the
continuing updates and modifications to the Bell System Memorial site.
With the new links and new pages and new documents that will be in the works
coming next year. Already we have had offers from people that want to help
contribute new materials to the Bell System memorial site, which we thank those
people very much for helping in expanding the research material here. The
contribution of materials either in electronic form or hard copy form is always
welcome and is in the tradition to the Porticus Mission to share and preserve
historical business documents.
On an interesting note. While researching information
on Mountain Bell (Mountain States Telephone & Telegraph), we came across
something unique about one of the Bell operating companies in the State of
Oregon and found a Bell company called Malheur Bell, which is odd since US West
eliminated the various Bell names in their territory in 1991, but this obscure
Bell company kept it's name and the Bell logo!
Click here for
information about Malheur Bell. Malheur Bell will be added on the US
West section of the Bell Operating companies.
Click here the Bell
Operating Companies Site.
Also, for those of you who visit this site that are cable or network
installers with your own business or work for a company doing this type of
work, you might be interested to know that the heritage of Western Electric
and the quality that they were known for is still alive and well through
SYSTIMAX® Solutions. This company
used to be a part of AT&T up until it was part of the Lucent spin-off in
1996. Lucent in turn spun-off AVAYA Communication in 2000 and then
AVAYA sold the SYSTIMAX® Solutions unit
to CommScope. To find out more about SYSTIMAX®
Solutions,
Click here.
The great thing is, after talking to the people at SYSTIMAX®,
it's great to know that most of their product is U.S. manufactured, not
cheap Chinese cabling or patch cords. The only place that sells
SYSTIMAX®, is Graybar Electric or
ANIXTER.
It's Official, AT&T received approval on December 29 to acquire Bell South.
Both the Cingular and Bell South name will be phased out in 2007.
Click here to
read further about the momentous event. With all the telecom mergers
in the U.S. recently, it makes one wonder what the point in the anti trust
suit of 1974-1982 was for and all the billions spent on
defending/prosecuting and the thousands of jobs lost.
September 2006
In September 2006, Bell System Memorial became a part of The
Porticus Centre, a non-profit entity that is dedicated to the preservation and
archiving of historical business documentation for select companies. An
overhaul of the original site that David Massey had put together is being planed
and new materials will also be added. The web site is now being hosted
by AT&T Web Hosting Services.
August 2006
This website has been basically dormant since late 2005.
The hosting contract with IPowerWeb.com will expire on September 14th if it is
not renewed.
Update: I have been in discussions with an interested
webmaster who would like to do whatever he can to keep the site alive when the
renewal comes up in September! Details will be posted later.
October 2005
Now for the latest addition to this website...some neat
photos of a solar powered motor built by a scientist in Sweden based on the
experiment shown in the Bell Labs Science Kit called "Energy from the Sun".
Click here for this latest addition
to my website.
October 11 - Added
Photos from Roy D. Welch
from the 1950's and 1960's era of Southwestern Bell.
October 30 - Added "End of the Line - The Rise and Fall of
AT&T" to my web page on
books about Ma Bell.
