Formerly American Telephone and Telegraph Company AT&T was incorporated in March 1885 to take over the long-distance business of American Bell Telephone Company, founded by inventor Alexander Graham Bell and associates. As a monopoly it was for years the sole American company for long-distance telecomimmications. In December 1899, it became the parent company of the Bell System that provided local exchange. AT&T moved into radio in the 1910s, and after the First World War, it participated in the radio trust that set up RCA as a governmentsanctioned monopoly.

AT&T also owned the first station to accept advertising—WEAE. It was forced to divest itself of the Bell System in 1984. In 1995 AT&T split into three companies: a “new” AT&T for communication services; Lucent Technologies, for communications systems and technologies; and NCR Corp, for transaction-intensive computing.