A History of Telephone Companies On July 9, 1877, a functional telephone was produced and the Bell Telephone Company became a reality. One year later, Western Union Telegraph Company entered the communications business. Bell then filed a lawsuit for patent infringement against Western Union, and won the case in 1879. When the Bell patent expired in 1893 and 1894, there was a formation of more than 6,000 independent telephone companies. In 1900, American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) was established as the …showed first 75 words of 740 total…

…showed last 75 words of 740 total…Ameritech requested a waiver of the AT&T consent decree to enter the $60-billion long-distance market. Continental Cablevision announced it’s intention to offer customers with computers direct access to the internet. February 8, 1996, President bill Clinton signed into law the first major overhaul of the Communications Act of 1934. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 shifts the locus of communications policy responsibility to the FCC and to the states and away from the courts and other regulatory agencies.