 | |
| Formerly | Lucent Technologies Consumer Products, L.P. (1996-2000) |
|---|---|
| Company type | Subsidiary |
| Industry | Customer Premises Equipment |
| Founded | 2000 |
Key people | Kent Wong Wah Shun, Vice-President and General Manager |
| Products | AT&T branded telephones |
| Brands | Advanced American Telephones |
| Parent | AT&T Technologies (1982-1996) Lucent (1996-2000) VTech (2000-present) |
| Website | telephones.att.com |
VTech Innovation, L.P., doing business as Advanced American Telephones, is a telephone manufacturing company.
American Bell Consumer Products was created on January 1, 1983, as a unit of American Bell, Inc., upon declaration by the Modification of Final Judgment that American Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T) [1] had to sell equipment to the public through an entirely separate subsidiary. American Bell Consumer Products sold terminal equipment traditionally available through the Bell System, such as the Trimline telephone. American Bell products could be found at Bell PhoneCenter Stores, as well as department stores such as Sears and Target. American Bell products were not marked with any Bell name, but simply marked "Western Electric" and the Bell logo, as any products sold through American Bell were not "Bell System Property".
Upon the divestiture of the Bell Operating Companies from AT&T, American Bell was renamed AT&T Information Systems, and American Bell Consumer Products was renamed AT&T Consumer Products, and Bell PhoneCenters were renamed AT&T PhoneCenters. Bell and Western Electric markings were replaced with AT&T on telephone housings. AT&T Consumer Products became responsible for leased telephones and manufactured telephones on January 1, 1984. AT&T Consumer Products was absorbed into AT&T Technologies in 1989. AT&T Consumer Products ceased operations of AT&T Phone Centers in 1995, deciding to simply focus on leasing equipment and on sales at department stores. It, along with the rest of AT&T Technologies and Bell Laboratories, became a part of Lucent Technologies in 1996, following completion of its spinoff from AT&T.
Lucent Technologies Consumer Products, L.P. (LTCP) became the new name of AT&T Consumer Products in 1996. Its operations remained largely unchanged from its operations at AT&T. In 1997, LTCP was placed in the unsuccessful Philips Consumer Communications joint venture. LTCP was retained after the venture failed.
In 2000, Lucent opted to reorganize its equipment units, spinning off its Networks Systems unit as Avaya, and selling off its Consumer Products unit. Its telephone leasing operation was sold to Consumer Phone Services, and its consumer telephone manufacturing division was purchased by VTech on April 2, 2000.
Renamed VTech Innovation, L.P., the former LTCP manufacturing division does business as Advanced American Telephones. Telephone production was abruptly shifted to China. Advanced American Telephones also entered a 20 licensing agreement with AT&T that will end in 2020 to use the AT&T brand on all telephones it would produce. In addition, Advanced American Telephones manufactured phones serve as a portrayal of AT&T's home phone service and are seen in ads for it.
Phones made today by Advanced American Telephones primarily include cordless telephones and some corded phones, such as Trimline, and some multi-line desk phones. Advanced American Telephones also holds the trademark rights to the Trimline and Design Line names, as well as others. They also produce answering machines.
Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by Finnish company Nokia. It is headquartered in Murray Hill, New Jersey, and operates a global network of laboratories.
Lucent Technologies, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications equipment company headquartered in Murray Hill, New Jersey. It was established on September 30, 1996, through the divestiture of the former AT&T Technologies business unit of AT&T Corporation, which included Western Electric and Bell Labs.
Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational telecommunications, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, established in 1865. Nokia's main headquarters are in Espoo, Finland, in the greater Helsinki metropolitan area, but the company's actual roots are in the Tampere region of Pirkanmaa. In 2020, Nokia employed approximately 92,000 people across over 100 countries, did business in more than 130 countries, and reported annual revenues of around €23 billion. Nokia is a public limited company listed on the Nasdaq Helsinki and New York Stock Exchange. It was the world's 415th-largest company measured by 2016 revenues, according to the Fortune Global 500, having peaked at 85th place in 2009. It is a component of the Euro Stoxx 50 stock market index.
The Western Electric Company was an American electrical engineering and manufacturing company officially founded in 1869. A subsidiary of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company for most of its lifespan, it served as the primary equipment manufacturer, supplier, and purchasing agent for the Bell System from 1881 until 1984, when the system was dismantled. The company was responsible for many technological innovations, as well as developments in industrial management.
The Trimline telephone is a series of telephones that was produced by Western Electric, the manufacturing unit of the Bell System. These telephones were first introduced in 1965 and are formally referred to as the No. 220 Hand Telephone Sets. The Trimline was designed by Henry Dreyfuss Associates under the project direction of Donald Genaro; the firm had produced the previous post-war desktop telephone types for the American Telephone & Telegraph Company.
Bell Canada is a Canadian telecommunications company headquartered at 1 Carrefour Alexander-Graham-Bell in the borough of Verdun, Quebec, in Canada. It is an ILEC in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec; as such, it was a founding member of the Stentor Alliance. It is also a CLEC for enterprise customers in the western provinces.
Automatic Electric Company was an American telephone equipment supplier primarily for independent telephone companies in North America, but also had a worldwide presence. With its line of automatic telephone exchanges, it was also a long-term supplier of switching equipment to the Bell System, starting in 1919. The company was the largest manufacturing unit of the Automatic Electric Group. In 1955, the company was acquired by General Telephone and Electronics (GT&E). After numerous reorganization within GTE, the company's assets came under the umbrella of Lucent in the 1990s, and subsequently part of Nokia.
VTech is a Hong Kong-based global supplier of electronic learning products from infancy to preschool and the world's largest manufacturer of cordless phones.
AT&T Information Systems (ATTIS), originally known as American Bell, was the fully separate subsidiary of American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T) which focused on computer technology ventures and telephone sales, and other unregulated business. It was one of the three core units of AT&T formed after the breakup of the Bell System. As a twenty-five percent owner, AT&T Information Systems utilized production of Olivetti to manufacture their AT&T PC 6300 series of computers. Along with the 3B series computers and the AT&T UNIX PC the PC 6300 series of computers represented a multi-faceted strategy of competing with IBM, who was the leading computer manufacturer of the time.
Design Line, also known as Deco-Tel, is a brand name that AT&T has used for several of its specialty telephone designs to fulfill the demand by customers for more variety in telephone models.
AT&T Technologies, Inc., was created by AT&T in 1983 in preparation for the breakup of the Bell System, which became effective as of January 1, 1984. It assumed the corporate charter of Western Electric Co., Inc.
The Princess telephone was introduced by the Bell System in 1959. It was a compact telephone designed for convenient use in the bedroom, and contained a light-up dial for use as a night-light. It was commonly advertised with the slogan "It's little...It's lovely...It lights", which was suggested by Robert Karl Lethin, an AT&T employee.
Philips Consumer Communications, L.P. was a $2.5 billion joint venture of Lucent Technologies and Royal Philips Electronics formed on October 7, 1997. Philips owned 60% of the joint venture, with Lucent owning the other 40%. PCC was a global venture, with branches in more than 100 countries, including the US, Latin America, Asia-Pacific and Europe. Analysts predicted PCC would become one of the major players in the consumer communications business.
QLT Consumer Lease Services, formerly AT&T Consumer Lease Services, is a New Jersey-based telephone equipment leasing company. The company provides telephone leasing services to residences and small businesses in the United States. These services include next business day replacement of the leased product for any reason.
Alcatel–Lucent S.A. was a multinational telecommunications equipment company, headquartered in Boulogne-Billancourt, France. It was formed in 2006 by the merger of France-based Alcatel and U.S.-based Lucent, the latter being a successor of AT&T's Western Electric and a holding company of Bell Labs.
The No. 4 Electronic Switching System (4ESS) is a class 4 telephone electronic switching system that was the first digital electronic toll switch introduced by Western Electric for long-distance switching. It was introduced in Chicago in January 1976, to replace the 4A crossbar switch. The last of the 145 systems in the AT&T network was installed in 1999 in Atlanta. Approximately half of the switches were manufactured in Lisle, Illinois, and the other half in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. At the time of the Bell System divestiture, most of the 4ESS switches became assets of AT&T as part of the long-distance network, while others remained in the RBOC networks. Over 140 4ESS switches remained in service in the United States in 2007.
Western Electric's Reading Works in Berks County, Pennsylvania was a manufacturer of integrated circuit and optoelectronic equipment for communication and computing. The work force grew to nearly 5,000 by 1985 making the Reading, Pennsylvania, facility one of Berks County's largest industrial employers. As a part of Western Electric and the Bell System, it changed its masthead many times during its life.
The Bell System was a system of telecommunication companies, led by the Bell Telephone Company and later by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), that dominated the telephone services industry in North America for over 100 years from its creation in 1877 until its antitrust breakup in 1983. The system of companies was often colloquially called Ma Bell, as it held a vertical monopoly over telecommunication products and services in most areas of the United States and Canada. At the time of the breakup of the Bell System in the early 1980s, it had assets of $150 billion and employed over one million people.
AT&T Corporation, commonly referred to as AT&T, an abbreviation for its former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, was an American telecommunications company that provided voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to businesses, consumers, and government agencies.
The history of AT&T dates back to the invention of the telephone. The Bell Telephone Company was established in 1877 by Alexander Graham Bell, who obtained the first US patent for the telephone, and his father-in-law, Gardiner Greene Hubbard. Bell and Hubbard also established American Telephone and Telegraph Company in 1885, which acquired the Bell Telephone Company and became the primary telephone company in the United States. This company maintained an effective monopoly on local telephone service in the United States until anti-trust regulators agreed to allow AT&T to retain Western Electric and enter general trades computer manufacture and sales in return for its offer to split the Bell System by divesting itself of ownership of the Bell Operating Companies in 1982.