In Bell subsidiary Northern Electric forerunner of Nortel began to produce telephones and switchboards in Montreal. By developing its manufacturing capacity, the company took an active part in establishing the telecommunications industry in Canada. On April 26, , 65 years after its founding, Bell Canada installed its millionth telephone. Canada had a population of over 12 million at the time. Considered to be a public utility, Bell Canada played a key role in establishing a unique technical expertise in the country.
Thanks to Bell, Canada is one of the most technologically advanced countries. Benefitting from the latest innovations, its telecommunications network is on the leading edge of modern technology.
Company Employees Behind Bell's management team are thousands of technicians building the network. They put up telephone poles, string wires, lay cable, make repairs, put in phones for new subscribers, and install and maintain exchange equipment. This crew consists mainly, if not entirely, of men.
In the telephone industry, there is a very clear division of labour between men and women. Technical work is done by men, and almost all operators are women. During the Second World War, because of the shortage of manpower, women for the first time became technicians at some telephone exchanges. Operators, or "The Voice with a Smile" To subscribers, operators personify both the telephone company and service.
While telegraphic service requiring a certain amount of technical knowledge was provided by young men, operating telephones was defined as women's work. Why did companies prefer women operators? A number of reasons were advanced - "clear speaking voice," "courtesy," "patience" and "visual acuity. Many working-class women were hired as telephone operators. For them it was a step up on the social ladder. The work of a telephone operator was very demanding.
Operators not only had to concentrate and be polite at all times, they also had to wear a heavy headset, do repetitive movements and repeat phrases learned by heart all day long, and work at a frantic pace at the busiest times.
Employees' Contribution to the Community Throughout the 20th century, telephone company employees played a significant role in their communities. They not only provided an essential service, they were also active in the fields of education, health, community development, and the arts and culture.
Tens of thousands of current or retired phone company employees performed volunteer work to help improve people's quality of life. Giving away Christmas hampers; developing devices to enable visually impaired children to take part in various sports; inspecting, refurbishing and distributing computers to schools: these are just a few examples of what volunteers did and still do. Since its founding, Bell Canada itself has played a philanthropic role by making annual donations to many charitable organizations.
Bell and the Environment Bell Canada has played a leadership role in environmental protection and corporate social responsibility. In Bell established an Environment Services team and drew up an environmental policy that is an integral part of its code of conduct.
How can a big business like Bell help protect the environment and contribute to sustainable development? In business as at home, environmental protection starts with everyday habits. In the early s, Bell Canada was one of the first companies to put boxes for paper recycling in its offices. Over the years, various strategies have helped reduce resource consumption: using a satellite communications system for more efficient fleet management, collecting and recycling thousands of used cell phones, and teleconferencing and telecommuting to eliminate unnecessary travel and thus reduce air pollution and fuel consumption.
Manual Switching The telephone as we now know it is the culmination of a long process of development of switching technology, that is the connection between two telephones. The first phones were massive wooden boxes. At the time of Melville Bell, the same device served as both transmitter and receiver, so the user had to keep moving it back and forth between ear and mouth to listen and speak.
By the late 19th century, the boxes contained the battery that served as a power supply, which is why they had to be so big. The year saw the introduction of telephone exchanges with a central battery. This made smaller telephones possible. With the inception of the first exchange with a central battery, subscribers no longer had to turn a crank to call the exchange. As soon as the receiver was picked up, a light corresponding to the telephone number lit up at the switchboard.
The operator answered and then connected the caller to the requested party. In Canada automatic switching was tested in Terrebonne and out West. After the First World War, the high demand for telephones forced companies to adopt this technology.
In the s, technological changes affecting local telephone service transformed the procedures to be followed. With the new automatic exchanges, subscribers used rotary dial phones that sought out the receiving number. From that point on, operators were no longer indispensable for local calls. Newspapers announced: "Subscribers won't need operators. The public had to be educated about this new technology because callers had to learn how to dial numbers.
Now that we are used to Touch-Tone service, do we still know how to dial? The Push-Button Telephone Push-button phones are now the norm. With the push-button telephone replacing the rotary dial phone, combined with electronic switching technology introduced in , the plain old phone became a data terminal. Over the years, many new services have been introduced - speed calling, three-way calling, call forwarding, call management call display, call screen, call trace, call return - to ensure confidentiality, security and convenience through better control of incoming calls.
As a result, subscribers have better control of the use of their phones. More and More Phone Numbers In the s, there were so few subscribers that callers simply told the operator the name of the person they wished to speak to. In Montreal this personal system was replaced by telephone numbers in A few years later, callers had to give the name of the exchange as well as the number, for example Main Area codes became necessary with the growth of long-distance calling.
In North America adopted the seven-digit standard for phone numbers and kept the three-digit area code. Up until the s, phone numbers began with letters associated with the exchange names.
A few years later, in , Bell Canada replaced the letters with numbers. During the s, the growing number of telecommunications devices fax machines, mobile phones, pagers necessitated the adoption of digit dialling in major Canadian urban areas.
A Canadian first occurred in October , when Toronto's area code was split and a new code assigned to the suburbs. A few years later, in , it was Montreal's turn for a reorganization, as the area code was joined by the How long will it be before we each have a personal number to prevent running out of phone numbers?
A Business Management Tool At the turn of the 20th century, the telephone was considered to be essential to business. It enabled users to be in virtually two places at once and was a means of instantaneous communication. Also, the widespread use of the service meant increased efficiency and productivity, because it saved money by eliminating travel.
The decentralization of activities and the creation of specialized zones in cities assumed the existence of efficient means of communicating over distances. Thanks to the telephone, managers could run their businesses and co-ordinate operations going on in different locations plant, office, store, warehouse. From the Office to the Home A Household Management Tool Originally considered to be a scientific curiosity, or even a toy, then a business communications device, the telephone gradually made its way into private homes.
Because of its high cost, it was for a long time a luxury reserved for the well-to-do. Many businessmen used the phone to work from home - the beginnings of telecommuting! At first the lady of the house made use of the telephone in much the same way that a businessman did. It was a household management device that enabled her to order groceries, call for help in case of emergency, inform others when she was behind schedule, or make appointments.
But it soon became a powerful instrument of socialization. In Canada, the adoption of a flat rate for local calls, as opposed to pay-per-use charges, encouraged long conversations. A Means of Modernizing the Cityscape In the late s, telephone companies liked to claim that the architectural innovation known as the skyscraper would not have been possible without the telephone.
How else could thousands of messages circulate without overloading the elevators in these tall buildings? The telephone's promoters claimed that delivery by messengers would make big modern buildings economically unfeasible because the number of elevators they would need would take up too much room!
Telephones solved that problem. They transmitted thousands of messages throughout the big cities. The telephone truly modernized the cityscape and facilitated the concentration of economic activities downtown. Like Living in a Hotel In the early 20th century, more and more apartment buildings were going up in Canadian cities. Attracted by the conveniences of this new type of dwelling, wealthier people also saw them as a substitute for the big houses that required a small army of domestics, who were becoming increasingly difficult to find.
Those who chose apartment living enjoyed a number of innovations and services in the buildings that made life very comfortable: elevator, central heating, garage, electric doorbell, telephone switchboard, janitor, dry cleaner and caterer, not to mention a dumbwaiter.
It was like living in a hotel! Where the telephone was concerned, the penetration rate in an apartment house like the Linton was much higher than the average for Montreal. In close to 75 percent of the building's residents had phones, while there were only 6 per inhabitants in the entire city. Suburban Living Thanks to the Telephone While the telephone was becoming an everyday item, Canadian cities were experiencing major population growth.
In , The populations of greater Montreal and metro Toronto grew spectacularly, and by had reached 1 million and ,, respectively. Theoretically, the telephone, like means of transportation, overcame distances and reduced the need for proximity. Did that spell the end of cities? Of course not. But the middle classes, especially, preferred the suburbs.
With a streetcar system, outlying areas could attract people looking for peace and quiet, away from the hubbub of the city. From Luxury to Necessity During the s, the increase in the number of telephone subscribers came to an abrupt halt all over Canada. It was not until after the Second World War that the penetration rate of phone service returned to its pre-Depression peak.
In the vast majority of Canadian households had a phone. At There were major regional differences across the country, however. Newfoundland had the fewest phones altogether and Ontario had the most home phones. The telephone became more accessible to the general public. A Controversial Subject In the late 19th century, power, telegraph and telephone poles and wires seemed to be taking over the city and countryside.
Officials and the general public alike decried the massive spider's webs of wires. A major public debate on these eyesores was raging in cities. Many municipalities took the public utilities to task over the invasion of the public thoroughfare by poles and wires. Some municipalities that were particularly concerned with their landscapes required underground cabling or stringing the wires through back alleys out of sight. When you walk the streets of Canada's cities today, you can see major differences in how much of this telecommunications infrastructure is visible.
In the downtown core and better residential neighbourhoods, cables are underground, while in working-class districts, poles and wires are still part of the skyline. With the advent of wireless telephony, relay towers and aerials on church steeples and other structures have been added to the communications transmission infrastructure. Regulation of a Public Utility Since the federal government has regulated the interactions between telephone companies and their subscribers.
The phone rapidly became much too important a service to be left entirely in the hands of private enterprise. In Parliament passed a special act stipulating that any increase in telephone rates must be first approved by the government. In federally chartered telephone companies like Bell Canada were placed under the Railway Act and their rates regulated by the Board of Railway Commissioners for Canada.
In the CRTC took over. A few years later, on August 5, , the CRTC rendered an historic decision that marked the start of competition. Decision allowed Bell Canada subscribers to connect telephones and other devices obtained from other suppliers to Bell's system. Behind the Technology: Out of the Public Eye When you think about phones and cities, poles and wires often spring to mind.
But the telephone system requires a great many other installations that are less well known. In a detailed examination of Bell Canada was made by a special committee appointed by the Canadian Parliament. After producing approximately 2, pages of testimony and exhibits, the committee concluded the investigation without coming to any determination. The company issued the following statement in response, 'Although the records of the Company have been searched from its organization twenty-four years ago, not a single fact has been adduced which reflects discreditably on the integrity or the justice of the management.
Also in the early s many independent telephone companies provided service in Ontario and Quebec. Some, fearing they would be taken over by Bell Canada, refused to interconnect their lines with those of the huge company. Many others, however, readily exchanged business with Bell Canada, taking advantage of the company's established long-distance lines.
During the next few decades, Bell Canada integrated systems throughout Quebec and Ontario. Long-distance telephone service changed significantly when the vacuum tube repeater was introduced in The device, which theoretically could transmit a voice an infinite distance, allowed the development of a transcontinental network. A shortage of materials during World War I led to an extended delay in providing service to new applicants.
Held orders accumulated, reaching a peak of 22, at the beginning of Bell Canada, however, remained committed to providing service to rural residents.
Bell introduced overseas service by radio in Another important innovation, the carrier system, was first installed by Bell Canada in from Montreal to Ottawa, Sherbrooke, and Trois Rivieres. The new technology simultaneously sent several conversations over the same pair of lines, avoiding interference by transmitting each call at a different frequency.
Now known as a form of multiplexing, it was originally referred to as wired wireless. The economic Great Depression of the s affected even the phone company.
Revenues from long-distance service were down five percent, and new orders for service decreased. In addition, the few new telephones Bell Canada did install could not match the surging numbers of telephones being disconnected. In the number of residential telephones leased by the company decreased by 11,; in the net loss of telephones was 41, By , though, recovery seemed to have begun: the company had a net gain of approximately 3, telephones.
In an attempt to regain some of its losses, Bell Canada intensified its efforts to subscribe rural residents. Stock prices and dividends also fell during the Depression. It was forced to reduce that in and could not return to that level until In the Wartime Prices and Trade Board ordered telephone companies to conserve facilities for war purposes, restricting the installation of nonessential orders for service.
By the end of the war, more than , orders had accumulated. Why sign up? Create Account. Suggest an Edit. Enter your suggested edit s to this article in the form field below.
Accessed 12 November In The Canadian Encyclopedia. Historica Canada. Article published October 16, ; Last Edited March 04, Babe, "Bell Canada Enterprises Inc". The Canadian Encyclopedia , s.
Scrivener graduated with a degree in modern history from the University of Toronto in and joined the company the same year, taking on a variety of roles in the commercial, traffic, marketing and public relations departments until As President, he paved the way for the creation of Bell-Northern Research. His keen understanding of digital network technology drove Northern Electric, then a subsidiary of Bell, to become a leader in the international switching market.
Introduction of the first Canadian-designed electronic switching system. Previously, customers consulted with a service representative and made an appointment to have equipment installed.
Bell deploys our first emergency calling system for police, fire and ambulance. Following a career path influenced by his grandfather James E. Bell art director, Colin McMichael, simplified the bell to present a more contemporary look. The signature and logo were not used together. In fact, the signature spelled the eventual demise of the pictorial bell. In , she became the first woman officer of the Financial Analysts Federation, a professional organization that represented more than 15, securities analysts and investment managers.
Bell is the first company in North America to invest in digital switching technology, a vital long-term step into the digital era. Don Black, corporate design manager, was one of the key persons involved in developing this word-symbol version of the corporate logo, making its first appearance on company vehicles in Bell was on its way to becoming much more. An exceptional engineer and executive, Mr.
Cyr grasped both the technical and corporate opportunities at Bell in the early days of cellular technology. BCE becomes the parent company of Bell Canada.
Bernard was also known for her community involvement and her support for organizations that helped the under privileged. Starting in , he served in a variety of senior management positions, before his appointment as President.
Under Mr. Monty was appointed President of Bell Canada in May , bringing his deep experience and understanding of markets, telecommunications and technology to the helm of Bell and BCE. Bell establishes a full-time environmental group to manage a comprehensive company-wide program. The environmental policy is embedded in the company's Business Code of Conduct.
Kearney joined Bell in at the Treasury Department before moving on to a variety of management and technical positions in Accounting and Systems. During the McLennan era, Bell unveiled a 3-year plan to streamline operations in order to allow a more effective response to the market and Bell customers.
On December 8, , Bell Canada launched a distinctive new logo. At the center is the human profile, representing Bell employees and the focus of all their efforts, the customer. The profile is set within two open rings, symbolizing the dynamic future of telecommunications—the ability to transmit sound, image and data instantly, wirelessly, across all frontiers. The Bell name appears directly beneath the profile, a graphic representation of how the company supports customers in all their communications needs.
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