Company critical analysis - AT&T Research Paper

Company critical analysis - AT&T - Research Paper Example Launched from New Haven, Connecticut in 1878, AT&T, working under the aegis of the American Bell Company gradually spread its business into all major towns of the country and acquired the assets in their totality from the Bell Company on December 30, 1899. Background of the company (AT&T) and its problem with competitors AT&T partnered with the Western Electric Company during its initial years in business and made innovative discoveries in the field of telecommunications which allowed it to spread the business to all parts of the American Continent. Its innovations and discoveries allowed it to make transcontinental telecommunication feasible. When the Bell Company’s patent expired in 1894, thousands of other operators’ jumped into the fray triggering intense competition and causing a spurt in the number of telephone connections in the US. AT&T has never looked back since then and after decades of monopolistic rule in the American telecommunications industry, it till re mains the market leader by foraying and diversifying into technologies which changed with signs of the times. AT&T spread out throughout the world and established offices and manufacturing facilities in major cities of the developed countries. The company has many inventions’ in telecommunication technology credited to its scientists, seven amongst them even winning the Nobel Prize in Physics (Web, AT&T). The invention of the transistor, the telephone dial, push-button telephony, the coaxial cable, mobile telephony, cellular telephone and demonstration of the first television are credited to the company, technologies that revolutionized the electronics industry. The company played pioneering role in the launch of the first telecommunications satellite in the world and the implementation of 911 as a direct emergency helpline within the United States. The first major issue which AT&T faced during its century long dominance in the United States was the settlement of its first fe deral anti-trust lawsuit in 1913, when it established itself as government sanctioned monopoly by signing a document called the Kingsbury Commitment, divesting itself of the control of the Western Union telegraph company, and paving the way for non-competing independent telephone companies to establish interconnectivity with AT&T services. The company was being directed during this period by its President, Theodore Vail, whose innovative strategies set the trend for the company’s operations for the next seventy years (Web, AT&T). Another anti-trust suit was filed against the company in 1974 when it had to divest itself from local telephone operations in favor of lifting of restrictions on the company as envisaged in the 1956 Consent decree (Web, AT&T). The parent Bell System ceased to exist in 1984 and the company acquired a new logo and renamed itself as AT&T. It forayed into computer business by acquiring NCR computers, which subsequently established itself as an independen t company after a decade long liaison. Competition in the telecommunications sector intensified in 1996 after President Bill Clinton signed the telecommunications Act into law which endeavored to eliminate legal and regulatory barriers prevalent in the industry. The company directors reduced subscription rates in populist endeavors to sustain itself,