Introduction
During the period of 1980s and 1990s, in both areas services as well as manufacturing tremendous growth have been seen in telecommunication industry. In this regard, every day new technologies are introduced in different markets such as mobile phone and telecommunication devices.
However, technologies and inventions in this field vary from country to country. In this context, the United States has been considered as one of the pioneer nation who opens the field of telecommunication for communication purposes. Nevertheless, in the history of telecommunication, this sector in the year 2001 experienced some huge financial and non-financial crises. Fortunately, at present, telecommunication sector showing new signs of recovery of 2001 huge crises and developing new devices. In this regard, due to rising demand for 3-G infrastructure equipments such as WiFi and some internet access equipment telecommunication hardware producers working hard to cope with market products’ demand.
AT&T
The history of AT&T started with the history of telephone in the United States. AT& T was rooted in 1857 when Alexander Graham Bell invented telephone. The AT&T was the major company Bell systems, to provide telephone services. The Bell systems, the best service provider of telephonic services in the world, this system broke up into eight companies by the agreement between the AT&T and the U.S department of justice.
The period of 1984-1996 was a very successful one for AT&T to provide equipments as well as services in a competitive world. At present AT&T is a global services provider to government customers and enterprises.
Basic Service
AT &T provides services in two parts: business services and consumer services. Through a relatively large chain of service providing the AT&T provides telephone service to over 35 million customers who are residents of USA and Internet service through AT&T WorldNet and AT&T digital subscriber line (DSL) service to limited areas of U.S.
AT&T’s business services which the company thinks that its future rely on consists of providing global communication services to three million customers, ranging from small business to large corporations. The corporate clients are provided domestic and international voice service, domestic and international data and Internet Protocol (IP) services, networking services, domestic and international wholesale transport services.
Strategic Groups
Public relation is the main point to focus to communicate with the employee’s in order to improve understanding of the company’s goals and strategies, while increasing team strength and dedication towards the success of the company. AT&T and AVAYA have signed a pact to work together in providing services of IP telephony and contact center solutions for businesses and organizations of all sizes.
Macro-environmental Forces
The organization works within the bigger structure of the exterior environment that shapes opportunities and poses pressure to the organization. The external environment is basically a collection of compound, vastly changing and growing forces that results in the organizations’ capacity to provide services to its customers. Understanding the environmental conditions is very important for an organization because all the strategy decisions based on it. AT&T always keeps an eye on their external environment so that it gets profit from the besieged markets.
Industry Lifecycle
It takes the perfect people, perfect technology and a perfect vision to be the best and competitive company in the world. The AT&T has proved since 125 years. Providing best quality and no such service provider in the field AT&T has made its place in past decades. Its great customer services, Internet services and long distance voice services provider has made it a leader in telecommunication industry.
AT&T started in 1876 by the invention of telephone. Alexander Graham Bell and other partner who started the Bell telephone company in 1877 run it successfully. Initially Bell had monopoly over telephone exchange because of the copyright law it has, in 1984 its patent was over, the negative point which it had at that time was instead of competing with the newly born firms Bell started taking them to court saying that they infringe Bell’s copyright law, therefore by the introduction of other competitive firs like Verizon etc people who were using Bell services started to switch over to other companies who were offering better services at lower price level Also the new firms successfully provide services to smaller and rural areas where Bell does not operates.
Verizon
Verizon Communications Inc. situated in NEW YORK and integrated in Delaware, it was established on June 30, 2000. Verizon rise on the New York Stock Exchange to do business as a firm on July 3, 2000. The people who started the Verizon Company and put its roots were the main reason to make this firm to be the 21st century competitive firm in the telecommunication industry. Its partners belong o the 19th century business era and are still working with same pace and prosperity. The intervention of Government basically gave a lot space for this industry to progress. When Telecommunication Act on Feb 8, 1996 was declared the Faderal Law introduced many business world policies.
This good step worked as a motivating spirit for Verizon. GTE and Bell are the two big companies, which were the merger of Verizon till two years of its arrival in the market, later Bell get parted by the joint decision of all shareholders, 27 state regulatory commissions and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and clearance from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and various international agencies. Hence on April 3 2000 a new wireless product of Verizon was introduced in the market, GTE’s wireless products were merged with the AT&T and it became the nation’s largest wireless company with this technology.
Basic Services
Verizon communications was added to the Dow Jones Industrial Average in April 2004. Verizon now provides services in wireline and wireless technologies to over 100 million Americans; daily such a huge amount of people connects to the Verizon networks. By the end of 2005 the Verizon Company provides 48 million wire line access lines and more than 5 million broadband connections throughout the country. It provides services to 1.5 billion customers daily to make phone calls and trillions of bytes are transferred through their network daily with max efficiency and dependability.
Strategic Groups
On 14 Feb 2005, the Verizon company decided to merge with the MCI, Inc; in order to make Verizon able to provide converged communications, diversion and information globally. The mergers announced agreement on Oct 6, which was later, closed with the business of $8.5 billion in 2006.
Macro-environmental Forces
Verizon Company has approximately 250,000 employees around the world who are working and contributing in 140 countries. Verizon provides three types of services: Verizon wireless, Verizon landline segment (Domestic Telecom) and the video network service. An undeniable reason for competing in the corporate world is its CAB (Consumer Advisory Board), A board that represent external stakeholders, which consists of customer support groups and government officials. The board consists of 25 members which meet after certain time period to discuss many company issues regarding the marketing, customer services, policies etc. the CAB invites external and internal analysts to provide their opinion and suggestion related to the matter of quality, customer service, business and policies.
Recent Fact Sheet
Industry Lifecycle
Verizon Communications Inc., which has its headquarters at NEWYORK, is a big wireless and wire line provider in America to businesspersons, Government and wholesale customers. Verizon wireless network includes Verizon business, which consists of dynamic and flawless services to the people, and the Verizon converged communications, which provide quality transfer of data over fiber optic cable everywhere.
AT&T VS Bell-Analysis
Business customers are always ready to expect changes related to any factor of service they are using. The BELL and AT&T are the two big chaps of the US telecom service industry. The war between them is of services, price-levels, and quality and last but not the least of leadership. These two big chaps are heading towards the era of telecommunication giants, consisting a huge amount of customers as well as services. In short we can say that the list of services is expanding day by day but not alone it also includes the increment of price tags on each service for the customers.
AT&T and bell are also looking forward toward a future, which will be mostly dependant on wireless technology. The AT&T CEO uses the slogan nowadays that “We’re about to become a company with wireless at its heart”. Despite of this competitive e fact there are some other ground facts as well, the major local phone business is under attack by cable operators and new carriers, which are responsible of delivering, phone calls over Internet networks. Also he revenue from the business world is inactive.
The wireless technology is so rapidly growing that it is observed, every man and woman and child over 10 years of age owns a mobile phone and wireless technology is reaching heights.
During the last few decades, rapid inventions and deregulations have been seen in telecommunication industry. And most of the telecommunication organizations were privatized by government which shows a new wave of competition in telecommunication industry. In spite of innovations, domestic calls are still a noteworthy source of income for telecommunication companies such as at&t and Verizon. Besides domestic calls, “High-speed Internet access, which delivers computer-based, data applications such as broadband information services and interactive entertainment—is rapidly making its way into homes and businesses around the world. The main broadband telecom technology—Digital Subscriber Line (DSL)—ushers in the new era. The fastest growth comes from services delivered over mobile networks”. (The Industry Handbook, n.p.).
Conclusion
Wireless is the center of everything that’s happening in today’s world. May it be a businessperson, a student, and a company and no matter a big industry everyone has the requirement of this technology and is using it with same pace. In last few years it has grown so much that life without it cannot be imagined. In America only millions of people are connected through several service providing companies, which are working with dedication and competitive skills in the market. The two top most companies are AT&T and Verizon, which were first merged together but later on separated. Now they work independently and compete in every aspect as much as possible.
While there are some benefits there must be some drawbacks of being so addicted to wireless technology. One can’t survive without it in today’s world. Either you have to compromise on price-level or quality. If you need both the best place to go on is one of the above-mentioned companies.
Although sometimes it happens that the profit makers do not consider the customer’s ability to afford the price if it has been increase by the firm but still it is the part of the game. In spite of the fact that there are many other companies in the market, AT&T and Verizon maintain their own place they need 100% satisfaction from their customers and try to capture major part of the business. A million of dollars are spend by these big chaps annually to maintain their business and fulfill its requirements. Wireless technology in corporate world is mainly needed and makes sense. A better means of communication in any business leads to a better profit and best performance!
Works Cited
AT&T Corporation Company History 2007.
AT&T: Asia-Pacific: Media Center. 2007. Web.
AT&T Wireless and Verizon-Company Business and Marketing – Brief Article. CommunicationsWeek International (2001). Web.
AT&T: Strategic Partners: AT&T and Avaya. 2007. Web.
AT&T: History. 2007. Web.
Mehta S N. AT&T and Verizon: Wireless at heart. Traditional telcos are scrambling to win the wireless market. But can they really connect with corporations? (2007).
The Industry Handbook – Telecommunications. 2007. Web.
Verizon | Investor Relations | Company Profile | Corporate History | Recent Verizon History. 2007. Web.