Alascom, Inc.,

doing business as A trade name, trading name, or business name is a pseudonym used by companies that do not operate under their registered company name. The term for this type of alternative name is fictitious business name. Registering the fictitious name with ...

AT&T Alaska, is an

Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...

telecommunication Telecommunication, often used in its plural form or abbreviated as telecom, is the transmission of information over a distance using electronic means, typically through cables, radio waves, or other communication technologies. These means of ...

s company; specifically, an

interexchange carrier An interexchange carrier (IXC), in U.S. legal and regulatory terminology, is a type of telecommunications company, commonly called a long-distance telephone company. It is defined as any carrier that provides services across multiple local acce ...

(IXC). AT&T Alascom is currently a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T Inc. AT&T Alascom, previously known as Alascom and many other names, was the first long-distance telephone company in Alaska. AT&T Alascom has extensive telecommunications infrastructure in Alaska, including three

satellites A satellite or an artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. They have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation ( GPS), broadcasting, scientif ...

undersea An underwater environment is a environment of, and immersed in, liquid water in a natural or artificial feature (called a body of water), such as an ocean, sea, lake, pond, reservoir, river, canal, or aquifer. Some characteristics of the underw ...

and

terrestrial Terrestrial refers to things related to land or the planet Earth, as opposed to extraterrestrial. Terrestrial may also refer to: * Terrestrial animal, an animal that lives on land opposed to living in water, or sometimes an animal that lives on o ...

cables containing

optical fiber An optical fiber, or optical fibre, is a flexible glass or plastic fiber that can transmit light from one end to the other. Such fibers find wide usage in fiber-optic communications, where they permit transmission over longer distances and at ...

, and numerous earth stations. Unlike most of the United States, AT&T had no role in Alaskan telecommunications as a

local Local may refer to: Geography and transportation * Local (train), a train serving local traffic demand * Local, Missouri, a community in the United States Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Local'' (comics), a limited series comic book by Bria ...

or long distance telephone provider until the purchase of Alascom in 1995. Alaska was also never served by any of the

Regional Bell Operating Companies A Regional Bell Operating Company (RBOC) was a corporate entity created as result of the antitrust lawsuit by the United States Department of Justice against the Western Electric Company and American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) in 194 ...

. Alascom and

General Communications, Inc. GCI Communication Corp. (GCI) is a telecommunications corporation operating in Alaska. Through its own facilities and agreements with other providers, GCI provides cable television service, Internet access, wireline (networking), and cellular ...

have been the two primary competitors for long-distance telephone service in Alaska since GCI's founding in 1979.

History

The company began in 1900 when the

U.S. Congress The United States Congress is the legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is a bicameral legislature, including a lower body, the U.S. House of Representatives, and an upper body, the U.S. Senate. They both ...

authorized the

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of the United Stat ...

Signal Corps A signal corps is a military branch, responsible for military communications (''signals''). Many countries maintain a signal corps, which is typically subordinate to a country's army. Military communication usually consists of radio, telephone, ...

to create the Washington-Alaska Military Cable and Telegraph System, or ''WAMCATS''. During the 1940s and

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, the U.S. Army completed the system and it became known as the Alaska Communications System (ACS) and the

White Alice Communications System The White Alice Communications System (WACS, "White Alice" colloquially) was a United States Air Force telecommunication network with 80 radio stations constructed in Alaska during the Cold War. It used tropospheric scatter for over-the-horizon li ...

. In 1970,

RCA RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded in 1919 as the Radio Corporation of America. It was initially a patent pool, patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Westinghou ...

Corporation purchased ACS and renamed it RCA Alascom. Alascom greatly built up the telecommunications infrastructure in the state during this time, due to RCA's major involvement in

communications satellite A communications satellite is an artificial satellite that relays and amplifies radio telecommunication signals via a Transponder (satellite communications), transponder; it creates a communication channel between a source transmitter and a Rad ...

s. In 1979,

Pacific Power & Light Company PacifiCorp is an electric power company based in the Lloyd Center Tower in Portland, Oregon with operations in the western United States. PacifiCorp has two business units: Pacific Power, a regulated electric utility with service territory throu ...

(later known as PacifiCorp), thru its subsidiary

Pacific Telecom Pacific Telecom, Inc., originally Telephone Utilities, Inc. and now CenturyTel of the Northwest, Inc., was an independent telephone company that owned over 600,000 telephone lines in 12 states prior to its acquisition by CenturyTel. History Nor ...

, Inc., purchased RCA Alascom and it became known as Alascom, Inc. The company launched three

s into orbit: Aurora I on October 27, 1982, Aurora II on May 29, 1991, and Aurora III (later renamed AMC-8) in 2000. All three satellites are dedicated solely to providing telecommunications services to Alaska. The original AT&T purchased Alascom in 1995 and gave the company its current name. Alaska regulatory approval of both that purchase and SBC's later purchase of AT&T required that AT&T Alascom continue to exist as a separate entity.

References

External links

*
Yahoo! — AT&T Alascom Company Profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Atandt Alascom AT&T subsidiaries Telecommunications companies of the United States Communications in Alaska Companies based in Anchorage, Alaska American companies established in 1970 Telecommunications companies established in 1970 1970 establishments in Alaska

History

See also

References

External links