1876: Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone, for which he receives

two patents. With two financial backers founds the company that becomes
AT&T.

1877: The Bell Telephone Company, the first predecessor

company to AT&T, is formed and issues stock to the seven
original shareowners.

1878: The first telephone exchange in the United States opens

in New Haven, CT under license from Bell Telephone. Within a
few years, licensed telephone exchanges open in every major
city in the country. These franchises, together with the parent company,
eventually become known as the Bell System.

1882: The American Bell Telephone Company acquires a

majority interest in the Western Electric Company, securing a
supplier for telephone equipment.

1885: The American Telephone and Telegraph Company is

formed as a subsidiary of then-parent American Bell Telephone
Company, with a charter to build and operate the original long
distance network. By the end of the year, AT&T completes its first line,
between New York and Philadelphia. The initial capacity of the line was
one call.

1892: AT&T reaches its initial goal, opening a long distance line
connecting New York and Chicago. The circuit could handle only
one call at a time. The price was $9 for the first five minutes.

1894: Alexander Graham Bell's second telephone patent expires,

opening the telephone industry to competition. Within a decade,
over 6,000 companies went into the telephone business in
localities across the country.

1899: Michael Pupin of Columbia University and George

Campbell of AT&T independently develop the theory of loading
coils. With loading coils, which reduce the rate at which a
traveling telephone signal weakens, it becomes possible to build longer
telephone lines.

1899: In a corporate reorganization, American Telephone and

Telegraph acquires the assets of its parent, American Bell
Telephone, and becomes the parent of the Bell System.

1907: Theodore Vail begins his second term as President of

AT&T (he had been president in 1885-1887) He develops the
philosophy, strategy, and structure that guides AT&T and the
Bell System for the next seventy years.

1908: Vail begins national advertising, and introduces the

slogan "One System, One Policy, Universal Service."

1913: AT&T settles its first federal anti-trust suit with a

document known as the Kingsbury Commitment. It establishes
AT&T as a government sanctioned monopoly. In return, AT&T
agrees to divest the controlling interest it had acquired in the Western
Union telegraph company, and to allow non-competing independent
telephone companies to interconnect with the AT&T long distance
network.

1915: Using the first practical electrical amplifiers, developed

by AT&T's Harold Arnold, AT&T opens the first transcontinental
telephone line. The new line connects the network that AT&T
had been building out in every direction from New York since 1885 with a
separate network that had been constructed by AT&T's Pacific Telephone
subsidiary on the West Coast. In effect, it connects telephones throughout
the continental United States. The ceremonial first call on Jan. 25 has four
locations: New York City, San Francisco, the White House in Washington,
D.C., and Jekyll Island, Ga., where AT&T President Theodore Vail is at the
time. Service is available to all telephone customers, but at an initial price
of $20.70 for the first three minutes between New York and San
Francisco, volume is low.

1919: AT&T installs the first dial telephones in the Bell System,
in Norfolk VA. The last manual telephones in the system were
not converted to dial until 1978.

1922: AT&T opens WEAF, the first commercial radio station in

New York. AT&T left radio broadcasting in 1926, retaining the
networking facilities used to send programs to stations across
the country.

1925: AT&T establishes Bell Telephone Laboratories Inc. as its

research and development subsidiary.

1927: AT&T begins transatlantic telephone service, initially

between the US and London. The conversations crossed the
Atlantic via radio. The initial capacity is 1 call at a time, at a cost
of $75 for the first three minutes.

1927: AT&T presents the first demonstration of television in the

United States. Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover's live
moving image was transmitted over cable to New York, where it
was seen by AT&T President Walter Gifford, and a large audience.

1934: AT&T inaugurates transpacific telephone service, initially

between the US and Japan. Calls travel across the Pacific via
radio. The initial capacity is one call at a time at a cost of $39
for the first three minutes.
 1937: Clinton Davisson of Bell Telephone Laboratories wins the
Nobel Prize in Physics for experimental confirmation of the wave
nature of the electron. He becomes the first of seven Nobel Prize
winners produced by AT&T.

1941: The first non-experimental installation of coaxial cable in

the network is placed in service between Minneapolis, Minn.,
and Stevens Point, Wis. The type of coaxial cable installed was
invented at AT&T in 1929 and is the first broadband transmission medium.

1946: AT&T begins offering mobile telephone service. With a

single antenna serving a region, no more than 12 to 20
simultaneous calls could be made in an entire metropolitan area.

1947: AT&T develops the concept of cellular telephony. The

technology to realize the concept did not yet exist.

1947: AT&T Bell Telephone Laboratories scientists John

Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley invent the
transistor, the first solid state amplifier or switch, and lay the
foundation for modern electronics. The three shared the Nobel Prize in
Physics in 1956 for the achievement.

1948: AT&T begins offering networking services for television

on facilities connecting major cities in the northeast and
midwest. The service reaches the west coast in 1951. Television
networks use this service to transmit programming to their affiliated
stations around the country.

1951: AT&T introduces customer-dialing of long distance calls,

initially in Englewood, NJ. The national rollout takes place over
the second half of the 1950s. Until this innovation, all long
distance calls required operator assistance.
 1956: AT&T and the US Justice department agree on a consent
decree to end an antitrust suit brought against AT&T in 1949.
AT&T restricts its activities to those related to running the
national telephone system, and special projects for the federal
government.

1956: AT&T opens for service TAT-1, the first trans-Atlantic

telephone cable. The initial capacity is 36 calls at a time at a
price per call of $12 for the first three minutes. Since trans-
Atlantic service opened in 1927, calls had traveled across the ocean via
radio waves. But cables provide much higher signal quality, avoid
atmospheric interference and offer greater capacity and security.

1958: AT&T introduces the first commercial modem.

1962: AT&T launches Telstar I, the first active communications

satellite. Telstar transmits the first live television across the
Atlantic.

1963: AT&T introduces touchtone service, with a keypad replacing

the familiar telephone dial, initially in Greensburg and Carnegie,
Pennsylvania.

1964: AT&T opens TPC-1, the first submarine telephone cable

across the Pacific. It went from Japan to Hawaii, where it
connected to two cables linking Hawaii with the mainland. This
brought the same improvements to trans-Pacific service that TAT-1 had
brought to trans-Atlantic service in 1956.

1965: AT&T installs the world's first electronic telephone switch

(special purpose computer) in a local telephone exchange,
Succasunna, NJ.
 1968: AT&T introduces 911 as a nationwide emergency
number.

1970: AT&T introduces customer dialing of international long

distance calls, initially between Manhattan and London.

1971: Researchers at Bell Telephone Laboratories create the

Unix computer operating system, which is designed to be
hardware independent. It eventually becomes the underlying
language of the Internet.

1975-1976: Computerization of the network begins as AT&T

installs the world's first digital electronic toll switch, the 4ESS®,
in Chicago. This switch could handle a much higher volume of
calls (initially 350,000 per hour) with greater flexibility and speed than the
electromechanical switch it replaced.

1977: AT&T opens its first Network Operations Center in

Bedminster, New Jersey. With this center AT&T achieves real-
time active management of its entire long distance network
from a single location.

1977: In Chicago, AT&T installs the first fiber optic cable in a

commercial communications system.

1982: AT&T and the Justice Department agree on tentative

terms for settlement of anti-trust suit filed against AT&T in
1974. AT&T agrees to divest itself of its local telephone
operations. In return, the Justice department agrees to lift the restrictions
on AT&T activities contained in the 1956 Consent Decree. The agreement,
once accepted by the court, becomes known as the Modification of Final
Judgement or MFJ.
 1983: In conjunction with the soon-to-be-divested Ameritech,
AT&T opens the first commercial cellular telephone system in
the United States in Chicago. The cellular franchises pass to the
divested local companies in January.

1984: On January 1 the Bell System ceases to exist. In its place

are seven Regional Bell Operating Companies and a new AT&T
that retains its long distance telephone, manufacturing, and
research and development operations.

1984: Equal Access carrier selection begins, first in Charleston

WV. The Federal Communications Commission had mandated
that all telephone subscribers choose which long distance
company they would reach on dialing 1+ the number. This would level the
playing field and bring full competition to the long distance telephone
market.

1984: AT&T reduces long distance rates by 6.4 percent, as non-

traffic sensitive costs begin moving from rates to local-company
administered access charges. This was the first in a series of
rate reductions over the next six years that totaled approximately forty
percent.

1988: AT&T lays and opens TAT-8, the first fiber optic
submarine telephone cable across the Atlantic. It has a capacity
equivalent to 40,000 calls, ten times that of the last copper
cable. (Today's cables have capacities equivalent to over 1,000,000 calls).

1991: AT&T acquires computer maker NCR Corporation in an

attempt to realize the synergies it believed inherent in the
coming integration of computing and communications.

1993: AT&T announces a definitive merger agreement with

McCaw Cellular Communications Inc, the largest provider of
cellular service in the United States. The acquisition is later
renamed AT&T Wireless. AT&T completes the transaction in 1994.

1995: On September 20, AT&T announces that it is

restructuring into three separate companies: a services
company, retaining the AT&T name; a products and systems
company (later named Lucent Technologies) and a computer company
(which reassumed the NCR name). Lucent is spun off in October 1996,
and NCR in December, 1996.

1999: AT&T announces general availability of its local

residential telephone service in New York with a bundled plan
called "AT&T Local One Rate New York." This is AT&T's first
general reentry into the consumer local telephone business since the
break up of the Bell System. It occurs under the provisions of the
Telecommunications Act of 1996.

1999: AT&T acquires TCI, the second largest cable company in

the United States. TCI becomes AT&T Broadband. The following
year, AT&T Broadband acquires cable company MediaOne, and
becomes the largest cable company in the United States.

2000: AT&T announces that it will reorganize into a family of companies –

AT&T (including AT&T Business and AT&T Consumer), AT&T Wireless and
AT&T Broadband. AT&T Wireless is spun off in July 2001, and AT&T
Broadband completes a merger with the Comcast Corporation in
November 2002.

2000: For the first time, the volume of data traffic on the AT&T network
exceeds the volume of voice traffic.

2002: AT&T deploys a new nationwide intelligent optical network which

restores service faster in the event of a failure or disaster. This new
network also provides the capability to dramatically shorten provisioning
time for new high-speed circuits for business customers who have direct
access to the network.
HOW GOOGLE MANAGES
ITS PEOPLE
THE SEARCH ENGINE GIANT IS WELL KNOWN FOR THE WAY IT
TREATS AND MANAGES ITS EMPLOYEES, BUT WHAT CAN
SMALLER BUSINESSES LEARN FROM THE INTERNET
BEHEMOTH?
Jermaine Haughton

The New York Times article criticising e-commerce giant Amazon’s alleged
mishandling of its employees in a “bruising workplace” has once again brought people
management into focus at the world’s leading corporations.

Conversely, recent research has commended fellow tech behemoth Google on its range
of employee initiatives that have led to a 37% rise in staff satisfaction, but how can
small and medium-sized businesses follow in Google’s path?

As discussed earlier this month by Insights, Google is one of the leading proponents
of the Objective and Key Results system of employee review. Commonly referred to as
OKRs, the process asks employees to set their own measurable goals and make them
public to colleagues via an internal network. In practice, an employee will set an objective,
such as aiming to increase website engagement by 20%, then identify three or four key
results that are quantifiable and help individuals hit their target.

Google claims the process is a much more adaptable and realistic method of evaluating
employee performance and showing where they need to improve, rather than the
traditional bell curve appraisal that ranks employee performance as low, medium or high.

Small business analytics company Swipely are one of many smaller companies to have
effectively introduced OKRs to their business. Despite the firm’s implementation of the
OKR system differing slightly from Google’s, chief executive Angus Davis argues that its
key tenets have proved vital in developing its growing workforce.

“Key results are not general or subjective actions you plan to take,” Davis explained.
“They should always include numbers to make it clear how much has been achieved. For
example, if Mary’s objective is to improve her sales prospecting skills, one key result
might be to spend two hours a week shadowing Jennifer, the team member who
demonstrates the most prospecting success.

“This consistency turns goal-setting into a habit and changes how people think about their
work and approach their everyday to-dos. It puts in place natural milestones that make
you think about what you need to do next and aim high.”

He added: “Most people wouldn’t consider 70% to be a good grade, but for OKRs that’s
just about perfect. You want your objectives to be ambitious enough to push you beyond
your limits. When everyone does this, it forces the tough conversations about what's truly
needed to beat expectations.”
LEADERSHIP THAT EMPOWERS STAFF
Bosses considering adopting the OKR system must also evaluate how Google’s method
of using the process in a collaborative way between line managers and personnel would
translate into their business. Google requires each employee to devise his/her targets
with their manager and dictates that there is no top-down dictation.

This requires a good manager, and the corporation specifically seeks to recruit and
develop leaders who are clear, consistent and fair when making decisions – even to the
point where they may be considered somewhat predictable.

Google argues that consistent leadership from managers actually provides a secure
working environment for staff to express themselves, as they know that, within certain
parameters, they can do whatever they want.

And for a company that has changed rapidly since its establishment in 1998, most
recently folding itself into a new conglomerate called Alphabet incorporating its
different businesses from health through energy to transport, its reliable and
dependable management principles provide a recognisable and unifying basis for staff to
innovate and contribute consistently to the corporation’s growth.

According to Laszlo Bock, Google’s innovative senior vice-president for human

resources, the teams working under the best managers perform better, are happier,
and stay longer with the company.

Based on data analytics, the executive identified the eight key qualities of such managers
(listed in the order of importance):

- Be a good coach

- Empower your team and don’t micromanage

- Express interest in your team members’ success and well-being

- Be productive and results-oriented

- Be a good communicator and listen to your team

- Help your employees with career development

- Have a clear vision and strategy for the team

- Have technical skills so you can advise the team

70-20-10 WORK SPLIT

Independence is clearly an on-running theme throughout Google’s working philosophy,
possibly stemming from its founder’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin’s research background
as PhD students at Stanford University, before leaving their studies to concentrate solely
on the search engine-turned-conglomerate.

One of its most famous management policies is to give staff the freedom to spend up
20% of their work time on off-budget projects related to the core-business, and 10% to
pursue ideas based on one’s own interest and competencies.

Through this policy of intrapreneurship, Google encourages employees to implement their

own ideas within the company, and stamp their own unique print on the firm’s operations.
With Google providing numerous perks, including office space and software, to support
entrepreneurial staff, the ‘free time’ policy has been useful in retaining key staff and
developing an estimated half of Google’s new products.

In an interview with MIT technology Review, Google executive Jonathan Rosenberg

argues that the “free time” policy is equally applicable to smaller companies with much
slimmer profit margins and tighter budgets.

Suggesting that bosses at now extinct video retailer Blockbuster could have survived if it
had sought innovation from within, Rosenberg said: “Most companies think that the set of
stuff that needs to be done is much more onerous than it really is today, and that’s
because they’re not thinking in terms of information, reach, and computing power. They’re
thinking in terms of the inputs that go into the old 20th-century manufacturing world.

“If you look at software today, much software is built on open standards. We have much
more powerful APIs. It’s very easy to do things, like the guys at Waze did or the guys at
Uber did, to put information together and accomplish something very significant with a
very small number of people.”

IT STARTS WITH RECRUITMENT

In a different approach to large companies in other sectors, Google’s people
management starts from its hiring process. The OKR system, leader-managers and “free
time” principle all rely on having high quality committed staff who are able to manage their
own time and responsibilities effectively.

Mathew J. Manimala, professor of organization behaviour at the Indian Institute of

Management, said Google have a policy of recruiting only class-A employees who
have all the qualities to do their job well, uplift their colleagues and drive the company
forward.

In return, the search giant, communicates its vision and gives staff the freedom to
implement it, while also attempting to strip away everything that gets in the employees’
way with a hassle-free working environment laced with benefits – from dry cleaning
services to leather seats.

So while your company might not have the global reach or financial muscle of Google,
there is nothing to say you can’t follow in its path and reinvent the way you manage your
people.