Western Electric and the Bell System - A SURVEY OF SERVICE

The Bell SystemaConcept in ActionIThe telephone is so basic a convenience today it is hard to realize that the inventionis less than a century old. In this brief span of time, the Bell System has grown from animaginative concept of 'universal service" into a reliable and versatile reality whichprovides America with the finest communications in the world.All this has come about as the result of the integrated and cooperative efforts of theBell System units constantly to improve the quality and increase the variety ofcommunications services offered to the public. It is the concept of service to the publicwhich unifies the Bell System, and in realizing this concept, Western Electric has playeda leading part.Growth, to help the Bell System meet the growing need for communications services,has been a constant factor in Western Electric for the more than 82 years the companyhas been a member of the Bell System. The details of this growth, cited later in thisbook, show how Western Electric has continually redefined responsibilities andrefocused efforts to achieve more effective concentration on its main goal: providing theBell Telephone companies with the means whereby each can offer new, improved andexpanded communications to the public it serves.As the Bell System has grown in service, it has grown in size. The success of theBell Telephone companies in supplying reliable and versatile communications atreasonable cost has resulted in the introduction of new types of communications. AsTheodore N. Vail - the man who conceived of the Bell System as a nationwide network -said many years ago, "The Bell System is strong because we are all tied up together;and the success of one is therefore the concern of all."Curiously, the Bell System’s dedication to service has tended in effect to disguise thecomplexity of the job involved. Today telephone service is so reliable that most peopletake it for granted. The subscriber expects to reach the one he is dialing in a matter ofseconds whether the call is across the town or across the country. It is doubtful if mostpeople are aware that the Bell System’s nationwide network must be capable ofhandling two and one-half million-billion inter-connections to link each of the more than80 million telephones in the United States with all the others.The nation-wide Bell System network, which has been described as the largestcomputer in the world, is the result of teamwork by people at AT&T, Bell TelephoneLaboratories, Western Electric, and the Bell Telephone companies. Close cooperationbetween Western Electric and Bell Laboratories engineers has resulted in theintroduction of countless communications products and services. Similarly, the closerelationships between Western Electric and each of the operating companies embody aspirit of united service to the public.Evidence of this teamwork is everywhere. Nation-wide Direct Distance Dialing is atribute to it. New telephone products like the Panel phone and the telephone sets for