Company OverviewIn 1875, AT&T established its company, invented by Alexander Graham Bell. Graham had financial assistance from two men, Gardiner Hubbard and Thomas Sanders, to create this global company. Bell being the inventor, he tried and successfully invented a talking telegraph. Over the next few years, Bell obtained patents, and in 1877 the three men formed the Bell Telephone Company to introduce the new invention, the telephone. In 1878, the first telephone exchange took place under license from Bell Telephone in New Haven, CT. During the first three years, telephone exchanges existed only in major cities in the United States and were operated under the American Bell Telephone Company license. In 1882, American Bell had a controlling interest in the Western Electric Company; it therefore became its manufacturing unit. Over time, American Bell came to own most of its licensees and the company became known as the Bell System. To build and operate the original long-distance telephone network, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company was incorporated on March 3, 1885, and became a wholly owned subsidiary of American Bell. The AT&T network was built from New York, where it reached its initial goal of Chicago in 1892, then San Francisco in 1915. AT&T acquired the assets of American Bell on December 30, 1899 and became the parent company of the Bell system. AT&T was able to be built in Denver, Colorado thanks to the inventions of charging coils. With the first practical electrical amplifiers in 1913, AT&T made international telephony possible. Until Bell's second patent expired in 1894, the United States could only legally operate Bell telephone systems. After Bell's second patent expired in 1894, until 1904, more than six...... middle of paper ......s increasing needs that had to be met daily. AT&T also controls a significant part of the telecommunications industry with the United States and therefore has a power of persuasion that worries even the government and economists. As more and more business applications and programs are stored and run off-site, the role of online connections and secure transmissions is more vital than ever. Companies like AT&T are the controllers and managers of a lot of information and data. Some pieces are useless and others absolutely vital to the security of America and its people. As a college athlete, I admire AT&T's partnership and sponsorship of the U.S. Olympic Team. They gave something back to the country but also represented themselves well on the world stage. The Olympics are an opportunity for the world to come together and the perfect place for a telecommunications company to get its name out there..