Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Part 1: Industrial design takes root -- Alexander Graham Bell's telephone in a box -- An unexpected configuration change -- Rapid domestication -- Part 2: A 20-year ...

As the iconic Bell Labs marks 100 years in 2025 as a research arm of former communications giants AT&T and Bell Telephone System, it has a historic, corporate tie-in to the Lehigh Valley: Allentown’s ...

During a study of evolving telephone designs for our new book, my coauthor Russell A. Flinchum and I came across two of Pratt’s distinguished alumni who had connections to the Bell Telephone System.

AT&T Inc. said Sunday it will acquire smaller rival BellSouth Corp. for $67 billion in stock, in a deal that goes a long way toward resurrecting the old Ma Bell telephone system. The deal would ...

The business of the Western. Electric Co. has long consisted in manufacturing telephone equipment for the Bell telephone system and other clients, and making other electrical supplies. The latter ...

The building that stands at 140 New Montgomery was built in 1925 for the Pacific Telephone Company, part of the Bell System. It was, at the time, the first significant skyscraper in San Francisco, as ...

Telephone systems predate the use of cheap computers and electronic switches. Yesterday’s phone system used lots of stepping relays in a box known as a “selector.” If you worked for the phone company ...

Looking around at the ubiquitous proliferation of wireless smartphones, it’s easy to assume that the classic wired “landline” phone on a copper loop (thank you, Alexander Graham Bell and others) is a ...