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…

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