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Evolution of AT&T 1885 The American Bell company established the original iteration of AT&T to develop and operate the first long-distanced telephone network in the United States 1899 With the emergence of thousands of independent telephone companies , American Bell oversaw the transfer of its businesses to its subsidiary , AT&T 1901 AT&T underwent an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange , and embarked on a years-long acquisition spree to expand its telephone network 1907 Investors led by J.P. Morgan gained control over an indebted AT&T, and they appointed Theodore Vail as CEO to carry out goals for a telephone monopoly1911 Morgan's financial backing allowed AT&T to buy hundreds of telephone companies and merge them into local operators , helping form the basis of the Bell System 1913 The Kingsbury Commitment enforced new regulations on AT&T by requiring its long-distance network to interconnect and secure approval for any acquisition 1918 A one-year wartime measure done by the U.S. Government briefly nationalized the telecom sector in the United States and placed it under the management of AT&T 1922 Even after the wartime measure ended, AT&T's competition had effectively been eliminated, and the Willis Graham Act helped solidify it as a monopoly 1925 Bell Laboratories was founded as AT&T's research and development division, and it would oversee numerous inventions that contributed to modern technology 1930 AT&T entered the 1930s as the world's largest company by total asset valuation and remained one of the most profitable corporations for the next several decades 1947 Researchers at Bell Labs developed the Transistor , and by the 1950s, it became a revolutionary due to its efficiency 1956 A consent decree between AT&T and the U.S. Department of Justice restricted the company to its native field of telephony 1974 After many unsuccessful lawsuits, the Justice Department sued AT&T in an antitrust lawsuit and sought to dismantle the Bell System piece by piece 1983 AT&T settled in 1982 and prepared for the Bell System breakup . Bell Labs assumed Western Electric 's assets and was placed under AT&T Technologies 1984 Once the Bell System ended and became seven regional companies , AT&T entered into computing 1996 In preparation for relaxed regulations , AT&T separated NCR Corporation and Lucent Technologies into public companies and formed AT&T Labs 1999 Southwestern Bell grew throughout the late 1990s by acquiring Pacific Telesis and Ameritech while AT&T became the largest American cable operator 2002 Due to mounting debt, AT&T separated its cable and wireless divisions, and those companies were acquired by Comcast and Cingular Wireless 2005 Southwestern Bell acquired AT&T Corporation and adopted its branding as the modern iteration of AT&T 2007 Shortly after acquiring BellSouth , AT&T rebranded Cingular as AT&T Mobility and secured a four-year exclusivity contract with the newly released iPhone 2011 AT&T attempted to acquire T-Mobile US from Deutsche Telekom , but after the deal faced a lawsuit from regulators, the merger was eventually cancelled 2015 DirecTV was acquired and brought under AT&T Communications , while AT&T expanded its presence in Mexico 2018 Wanting to achieve vertical integration , AT&T bought out Time Warner and rebranded it as WarnerMedia 2020 HBO Max was released by WarnerMedia as the company's core streaming service to combat cord-cutting in pay televison 2022 AT&T and Discovery, Inc. conducted a Reverse Morris Trust and merged WarnerMedia into a separate company called Warner Bros. Discovery 2026 AT&T acquired the fiber internet assets of Lumen Technologies and celebrated 125 years of being a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange
