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AT&T
AT&T's roots stretch back to 1875, with founder
Alexander Graham Bell's invention of the telephone. During the 19th
century, AT&T became the parent company of the Bell System, the
American telephone monopoly. The Bell System provided what was by
all accounts the best telephone service in the world. The system
broke up into eight companies in 1984 by agreement between AT&T
and the U.S. Department of Justice. From 1984 until 1996 AT&T was
an integrated telecommunications services and equipment company,
succeeding in a newly competitive environment. Today, AT&T is rapidly
evolving from a company that handles mostly long-distance voice
calls to a company that provides data and voice communications over
any distance through its two operating units, AT&T Business and
AT&T Consumer. AT&T is among the premier voice, video and data communications
companies in the world, serving businesses, consumers, and government.
The company runs the largest, most sophisticated communications
network in the U.S., backed by the research and development capabilities
of AT&T Labs. A leading supplier of data, Internet and managed services
for the public and private sectors, AT&T offers outsourcing and
consulting to large businesses and government. The company is a
market leader in local, long distance and Internet services, as
well as transaction-based services like prepaid cards, collect calling
and directory assistance. With approximately $37 billion of revenues,
AT&T has relationships with about 50 million consumers and 4 million
business customers, who depend on AT&T for high-quality communications.
AT&T has garnered several awards for outstanding performance and
customer service.
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