Editing Telecommunications company

{{Short description|Organization that provides telephone and/or other telecommunications services}}

{{Merge from|Telecommunications service|discuss=Talk:Telecommunications company#Proposed merge of Telecommunications service into Telecommunications company|date=November 2024}}
[[File:Bell Edison Telephone Building.jpg|thumb|280px|The [[17 & 19 Newhall Street, Birmingham|Edison Bell Telephone Company]] building of 1896 in [[Birmingham]], England]]

A '''telecommunications company'''{{efn|Abbreviated as '''telco'''. Alternative names include '''telephone service provider''',<ref>[http://www.fcc.gov/guides/portability-keeping-your-phone-number-when-changing-service-providers Operability: Keeping Your Telephone Number When You Change Service Provider]. FCC.gov. Retrieved on 2013-09-18.</ref> '''telephone company''' or '''telecommunications operator'''.}} is a kind of electronic communications service provider, more precisely a '''telecommunications service provider''' (TSP), that provides [[telecommunications]] services such as [[telephony]] and [[data communication]]s access.  Many traditional solely telephone companies now function as [[internet service provider]]s (ISPs), and the distinction between a telephone company and ISP has tended to disappear completely over time, as the current trend for [[supplier convergence]] in the industry develops.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=13BYDd8v-DUC|title=Policy-Making and Diversity in Europe: Escape from Deadlock|last1=Héritier|first1=Adrienne|last2=Windhoff-Héritier|first2=Adrienne|date=1999-11-28|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=9780521653848|language=en}}</ref>  Additionally, with advances in technology development, other traditional separate industries such as cable television, [[VoIP phone|Voice-over IP (VoIP)]], and satellite providers offer similar competing features as the telephone companies to both residential and businesses leading to further evolution of corporate identity have taken shape.

Due to the nature of [[capital (economics)|capital expenditure]] involved in the past, most telecommunications companies were [[government-owned company|government owned]] agencies or privately-owned [[monopoly|monopolies]] operated in most countries under close state-regulations. But today there are many private players in most regions of the world, and even most of the government owned companies have been opened up to competition in-line with World Trade Organization (WTO) policy agenda.  Historically these government agencies were often referred to, primarily in Europe, as PTTs ([[postal, telegraph and telephone service]]s).<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Sandholtz|first=Wayne|date=1993-01-01|title=Institutions and Collective Action: The New Telecommunications in Western Europe|journal=World Politics|volume=45|issue=2|pages=242–270|doi=10.2307/2950659|jstor=2950659|issn=1086-3338}}</ref> Telecommunications companies are [[common carrier]]s, and in the [[United States]] are also known as [[local exchange carrier]]s. With the advent of [[mobile telephony]], telecommunications companies now include [[wireless carrier]]s, or [[mobile network operator]]s and even satellite providers ([[Iridium Communications|Iridium]]).

Over time [[Communication software|software companies]] have also evolved to provide [[Voice_over_IP|telephone services over the Internet]].

==History==
In 1913, the [[Kingsbury Commitment]] allowed more than 20,000 independent telecommunications companies in the United States to use the long distance trunks of [[Bell Telephone Company]].<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.greensboro.com/life/this-day-in-history/article_9dad6eb5-887c-5f27-aaf0-a71a22c7ce6b.html|title=This day in history|work=[[News & Record]]|date=2015-12-21}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6MZFAQAAMAAJ|title=Abstracts of Reports of Corporations|last=Commission|first=New York (State) Public Service|date=1916|language=en}}</ref>

==Popular culture==
* [[Comedian]] [[Lily Tomlin]] frequently satirized the telephone industry (and the country's then-dominant [[Bell System]] in particular) with a [[sketch comedy|skit]] playing the [[Switchboard operator|telephone operator]] Ernestine. Ernestine, who became one of Tomlin's trademark characters, was perhaps most famous for the following line: ''"We don't care; we don't have to. We're the phone company."''
* In the satirical 1967 film ''[[The President's Analyst]]'', The Phone Company (TPC) is depicted as plotting to enslave humanity by replacing [[landline]]s with brain-implanted [[mobile phone]]s.
* In the 1988 video game ''[[Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders]]'', The Phone Company (TPC) was used by the Caponian aliens to secretly reduce the intelligence of humans.

==See also==
{{Div col}}
* [[Bell Telephone Company]], forerunner of AT&T in the U.S.
* [[Internet telephony service provider]]
* [[Competitive local exchange carrier]] (in Canada and the U.S.)
* [[Communications service provider]]
* [[History of the telephone]]
* [[Incumbent local exchange carrier]] (of the Bell System)
* [[Individual communication services and tariffs]]
* [[List of telephone operating companies]]
* [[List of mobile network operators]]
* [[Mobile network operator]]
* [[Plain old telephone service]] (POTS)
* [[Public switched telephone network]]
* [[Telecommunications Industry Association]] (for the development of U.S. telecom standards)
* [[Regional Bell Operating Company]] (in the U.S.)
* [[Service provider]]
* {{portal-inline|Companies}}
* {{portal-inline|Telephones}}
{{div col end}}

== References and notes ==
;Notes
{{Notelist}}
;Citations
{{Reflist}}

;Bibliography
* Huurdeman, Anton A. [https://books.google.com/books?id=SnjGRDVIUL4C The Worldwide History Of Telecommunications], Wiley-IEEE, 2003, {{ISBN|0-471-20505-2}}, {{ISBN|978-0-471-20505-0}}

==External links==
* [http://www.villagetelco.org/ Village Telco] – site about microtelcos
* [http://www.true-telecom.com/ Business Telecoms Company] – site about business broadband

{{Telecommunications}}
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[[Category:Telecommunications companies| ]]