The International Bell Telephone Company (IBTC) of Brussels, Belgium, was created in 1879
by the Bell Telephone Company of Boston, Massachusetts, a precursor entity to AT&T, initially to sell
imported telephones and switchboards in Continental Europe.IBTC rapidly evolved into an important
European telephone service provider and manufacturer, with major operations in several countries.AT&T,
its U.S. parent, later sold its entire European division and IBTC's subsidiaries to the International
Telephone & Telegraph Company of Cuba in 1925, ending a 46-year presence on the Continent.
== Organization == In 1879 Gardiner Hubbard, father-in-law of
Alexander Graham Bell and the first president of the Bell Telephone Company, founded the
International Bell Telephone Company in order to promote sales of its telephone equipment
throughout Europe.
During his tour of the continent the Belgian government offered him the greatest financial
incentives to establish his European subsidiary's headquarters in their country.The International
Bell Telephone Company (IBTC) shortly evolved into a holding company for its various telephone
service and production divisions, with its major manufacturing arm being the Bell Telephone
Manufacturing Company (BTMC), which was founded in Antwerp, Belgium, on 26 April 1882.
BTMC was created as a joint venture by the International Bell Telephone Company of New
York and the Western Electric Company of Chicago.
BTMC then established la Compagnie Belge du Téléphone Bell (Bell Telephone Company of
Belgium) in the same year as its Belgian operating subsidiary, one of several companies that
provided telephone services in the country, the others having evolved principally from
telegraph carriers.BTMC came under majority ownership by the telephone manufacturer Western
Electric, and also established multiple other divisions as national companies across Continental
Europe and Russia.
Western Electric was itself later majority owned by the American Bell Telephone Company,
returning control of BTMC back to the Bell organization.
== Bell Telephone Manufacturing Company ==
The Bell Telephone Manufacturing Company (BTMC) was opened on 26 April 1882 as the principal
manufacturing arm to assist International Bell with its growth throughout all of Europe,
where many countries had nationalistic trade policies favouring domestic suppliers.
BTMC was owned 45% by American Bell Telephone, and 55% by Bell's major U.S. supplier, Western
Electric (of which Bell was also a majority stakeholder).
Western Electric, a U.S. company formed during the era of the telegraph, became American
Bell's sole telephone supplier the same year.
In a share sale to Western Electric, American Bell later disposed of its ownership of BTMC
in 1890 in order to concentrate on telephone system operations, but since American Bell
had been Western Electric's majority shareholder since 1881 it maintained an indirect ownership
of IBTC.The IBTC was created for "...the production, sale, purchase and leasing of equipment for
telephony and telegraphy and everything directly or indirectly related to electricity" Later,
as demand for services bloomed, the Bell Telephone Company had insufficient operating funds to
quickly increase the telephone exchange network, resulting in Western Electric buying out all
45% of the shares held by Bell in 1890.Ezra Gilliland of Western Electric helped establish
the manufacturing arm, at which point a young university educated, multilingual American,
Francis R. Welles, took over its leadership, with the title of "Administrateur Delegue".
Francis Raymond Welles (b.
Athens, Pa., August 18, 1854 – d.
Vernet-Les-Bains, France, December 14, 1936), graduated the University of Rochester with
an Accelerated bachelor's degree (A.B.) in 1875, and a year later started work as secretary
to Enos M. Barton, a co-founder of Western Electric.
Barton had earlier sent him to Australia and New Zealand to help with operations there,
and Welles was then transferred to Brussels.
Welles would lead the overseas BTMC company for the next 30 years assisted by Louis De
Groof, a Belgian authorised agent.IBTC started up subsidiary manufacturing plants in major
cities throughout all of Europe, since nationalistic policies favoured local manufacturers.
In the year after its founding BTMC employed 35 people, and its workshops were accommodated
within a small plant at No. 4 Boudewijnstraat, Antwerp.
Its factory was completely rebuilt after a fire in 1882, and by 1885, the Bell Antwerp
facility had completed its conversion from importing telephones and switchboards from
the U.S., to local manufacturing, with production more than doubling annually as BTMC began
to supply their other divisions throughout Europe.
By 1900, BTMC was also its new parent's (AT&T) main supplier of telephone systems to Asia,
the Middle East and South America, and the facility had increased to a staff of 700 operating
from a greatly expanded plant.The Antwerp facility was largely responsible for introducing
the telephone to much of Europe, with its first manual and rotary dial telephone exchanges.
In 1884 the very first European intercity line was created between Antwerp and Brussels,
and in 1887 the first international line in Europe was opened between Brussels and Paris.By
the end of the nineteenth century European governments moved to nationalize their phone
companies, and the telephone service concessions of la Compagnie Belge du Téléphone Bell
were allowed to expire or were purchased by the Belgian government.Francis Welles retired
from BTMC in 1913 and returned to the United States shortly before the First World War.
Welles and was succeeded by Alexis Mois.
The Great War inflicted severe damage to BTMC's operations and production facilities, much
of which was destroyed or seized by the invading German army.
The company's U.S. managers immediately departed for the United Kingdom or returned home, while
many plant employees had been seconded to the Belgian army, or moved to other unoccupied
countries.
Western Electric's head office contact and control of the company was lost for the duration
of the war and almost all engineering development and manufacturing there stopped for the remainder
of the war.In its early existence the Bell Telephone Manufacturing Company of Belgium
took on the role of a child of two often squabbling parents, Western Electric and the American
Bell Telephone Company (later to become AT&T).
Sired by Bell Telephone's Hubbard and Vail it would become the custody of Western Electric
through share purchase, which then nurtured and raised it only to see its Belgian concession
reclaimed by a nationalistic government.
However even through a succession of owners the BTMC has retained its original name, even
to the present day.
== Early European expansion ==
=== Belgium === The first telephone exchanges in Belgium were
opened in 1878.
A company was formed in Brussels in 1879, and others followed.
Competition was recognised as unsatisfactory, and the various companies were encouraged
to amalgamate.
The Compagnie Belge du Téléphone Bell (the Bell Telephone Company of Belgium) was formed
in 1882, as the Belgian subsidiary of the International Bell Telephone Company of New
York.
By the end of 1886, the Belgian division had a total 6,900 kilometers of telephone lines,
and 3,532 subscribers in seven cities, including Brussels, Antwerp, Charleroi, Ghent, Verviers,
and Liège.
=== Switzerland === The first exchange in Switzerland was opened
in Zurich, operated under a license granted by the IBTC to a group of business men on
July 24, 1880.
During 1881 exchanges were subsequently opened in Geneva, Lausanne, and Winterthur by the
government, which shortly after bought out the Zurich exchange.
Fourteen exchanges were in operation at the end of 1883, and twice as many a year later.
=== Netherlands === The Nederlandsche Bell Telefoon Maatschappij
(Dutch Bell Telephone Company) was formed in the Netherlands in 1881.
By the end of 1886, the Netherlands division had a total of 3,700 kilometers of telephone
line, plus 2,623 subscribers in eight cities, including Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague,
Groningen, Haarlem, and Arnhem.
=== Italy === In Italy, the company quickly established
exchanges in Milan, Turin, and Genoa, and exchanges in a dozen of the other largest
cities were started in 1881 by other interests under the auspices of a group of Parisian
financiers.
By the end of 1886, the Italian division had a total of 8,073 subscribers in twelve cities,
plus approximately 12,500 kilometers of telephone lines.
The largest exchanges were in Rome (2,022 subscribers), Milan (1,089), Genoa (950) and
Naples (873).
=== Sweden and Norway (1881–1908) === The International Bell Telephone Company was
also responsible for the introduction of the telephone into Norway, and Sweden.
In 1881, exchanges were established in Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö.
IBTC established Sweden's first telephone company, Stockholms Bell Telefonaktiebolag,
formed with the assistance of three former Swedish PTT superintendents named Lybeck,
Bratt and Recin.
The new company established their first exchange in the Skandinaviska Kreditaktiebolag Building
on Västerlånggatan Street in Stockholm, originally utilizing equipment designed by
Alexander Graham Bell and his assistant Thomas Watson, and imported from Bell's supplier
in Boston.
The first Swedish phones, which had signal coils, ringers and Blake microphones, were
available as desk or wall models, connecting to Gilliland type switchboards.When Bell's
Swedish phone exchange formally opened in Stockholm on 1 September 1880, it had 121
subscribers, increasing to 218 later in the year, with the majority of its users belonging
to government, business and upper-class homes.
The Swedish subsidiary soon opened more exchanges in the Södermalm and Norrmalm sections of
the capital within its first year, operating between 9:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. daily, but
in May 1883 moved to around-the-clock operations, charging subscribers between 160 and 280 Swedish
kronor (SEKs) per year depending on their locations within Stockholm (less expensive)
or outside of the city proper (more expensive).
Bell's fee structure was not notably expensive, as rates were higher in most countries at
the time and only lower in a few others.After 1983 the Bell subsidiary was forced to reduce
its fees due to competition from another newly formed phone company, although it was also
able to increase its subscriber base.
It later had to restrict its operations to the Östermalm section of the city, where
it started a new network for private subscribers with lower fees using a different rate plan
with a lower number permitted calls per month (its initial rate structure provided unlimited
calling).
In 1898 the Bell subsidiary contracted with its competitor, SAT, allowing it to operate
their facilities, thereby increasing its subscriber base to about 7,000 homes and businesses.
Due to government intervention and other reasons, the Bell subsidiaries were eventually legislated
out of Sweden and Norway in favour of national firms.
Stockholms Bell Telefonaktiebolag ceased its telephone operations completely in 1908, having
acquired 15,285 subscribers by that time, in a regulatory environment which had previously
permitted unrestricted telephone business competition.
=== Russia === The Bell Company introduced the telephone
to Russia in 1883 in St. Petersburg (or Petrograd) and Moscow.
By the end of 1886, IBTC's Russian division had a total of 3,440 subscribers in six cities,
with 9,550 kilometers of telephone lines.
Its largest exchanges were in St. Petersburg (1,080 subscribers), followed by Moscow (690)
and Warsaw (533).Significant trade developed between Belgium and Russia during the Tsarist
era, with up to 20,000 Belgians from hundreds of companies working there.
However all of the IBTC's Russian investments and plants were subsequently lost during the
1917 Russian Revolution.
== Divestiture == At the very close of 1899, the American Bell
Telephone Company was acquired, for business purposes, by its own subsidiary, the American
Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T), which then became the head of the monolithic and
monopolistic Bell System.
Significant criticism of AT&T (a monopoly) had emerged in the United States that domestic
telephone system rates were higher than they needed to be, and that AT&T was using those
revenues to subsidize its European operations.
Due to that reason and others, and also due to the U.S. Government's regulatory intervention,
AT&T president Walter Gifford divested almost all international interests held by the Bell
System in 1925, with the exceptions of the Bell Telephone Company of Canada and Northern
Electric.
The European division and its subsidiaries were sold to the International Telephone & Telegraph
Company of Cuba, at the start of that company's meteoric rise in the international telecommunications
industry.
== See also == Bell Telephone Company
Bell Telephone Memorial, a large monument by Walter Seymour Allward dedicated to the
invention of the telephone Victorian Internet, describing advances in
telecommunications during the 19th century, and their effects on society
Mundaneum, a precursor to the Internet organized in Brussels in 1910