Automatic Electric Company (A.E. Co.) was an American telephone equipment supplier primarily for independent telephone companies in North America, but also had a worldwide presence. With its line of automatic telephone exchanges, it was also a long-term supplier of switching equipment to the

Bell System The Bell System was a system of telecommunication companies, led by the Bell Telephone Company and later by the AT&T Corporation, American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), that dominated the telephone services industry in North America fo ...

, starting in 1919. The company was the largest manufacturing unit of the Automatic Electric Group.GTE Automatic Electric (1955) ''This is Automatic Electric--Pioneers in Communication Techniques'' In 1955, the company was acquired by General Telephone and Electronics (GT&E). After numerous reorganization within GTE, the company's assets came under the umbrella of

Lucent Lucent Technologies, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications equipment company headquartered in Murray Hill, New Jersey. It was established on September 30, 1996, through the divestiture of the former AT&T Technologies busines ...

in the 1990s, and subsequently part of

Nokia Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications industry, telecommunications, technology company, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, originally established as a pulp mill in 1 ...

History

In 1889, Almon Strowger, of Kansas City, Missouri, was inspired by the idea of manufacturing automatic

telephone exchange A telephone exchange, telephone switch, or central office is a central component of a telecommunications system in the public switched telephone network (PSTN) or in large enterprises. It facilitates the establishment of communication circuits ...

s that would not require switchboard operators. He founded the Strowger Automatic Telephone Exchange Company in 1891, which held the first

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...

s for the automatic telephone exchange. In 1901, with the construction of a new company manufacturing plant at Morgan and Van Buren Streets in West Chicago, Strowger helped form the Automatic Electric Company to which he leased his patents exclusively. Automatic switches based on the Strowger system proliferated in independent telephone companies in the 1910s and 1920s, well before the

started deployment of

Panel switch The Panel Machine Switching System is a type of automatic telephone exchange for urban service that was used in the Bell System in the United States for seven decades. The first semi-mechanical types of this design were installed in 1915 in Newark, ...

technology in the 1910s. In 1919, the Bell System was impacted considerably by organized operator strikes and the leadership abandoned its rejection of automatic switching equipment. As a result, Automatic Electric became a long-term supplier of step-by-step switching equipment to the Bell System for installations where the large-scale Panel system was not economical. General Telephone and Electronics (GT&E) acquired Automatic Electric through a merger with Theodore Gary & Company in 1955, and continued operating the unit into the 1980s. Lenkurt, a manufacturer of carrier equipment, was purchased by GT&E in 1959, and held separately from Automatic Electric. In 1983, GTE merged Automatic Electric and Lenkurt into GTE Network Systems, which was quickly renamed GTE Communication Systems when

AT&T AT&T Inc., an abbreviation for its predecessor's former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the w ...

announced the renaming of

Western Electric Western Electric Co., Inc. was an American electrical engineering and manufacturing company that operated from 1869 to 1996. A subsidiary of the AT&T Corporation for most of its lifespan, Western Electric was the primary manufacturer, supplier, ...

as AT&T Network Systems. GTE Microcircuits, the microelectronics division of GTE Communication Systems known for its G65SC12 CMOS version of the then popular

6502 The MOS Technology 6502 (typically pronounced "sixty-five-oh-two" or "six-five-oh-two") William Mensch and the moderator both pronounce the 6502 microprocessor as ''"sixty-five-oh-two"''. is an 8-bit microprocessor that was designed by a small ...

microprocessor, was sold to California Micro Devices in 1987. In 1989, the remaining assets of the company were placed into a joint venture between AT&T and GTE called AG Communication Systems (the ''A'' and ''G'' respectively standing for the partners' names). At the same time, GTE Communications systems spun off their interconnect business to a joint venture called Fujitsu GTE, later to be renamed as Fujitsu Business Communication Systems, Inc. AG Communication Systems ceased separate existence in 2004, and became fully incorporated into

, subsequently

Alcatel-Lucent Alcatel-Lucent S.A. () was a multinational telecommunications equipment company, headquartered in Boulogne-Billancourt, Paris, France. The company focused on Fixed line telephone, fixed, Mobile phone, mobile and telecommunications convergence, ...

and then

. Alcatel-Lucent also owned many of the assets of the Western Electric Company, Automatic Electric's former rival and Bell System counterpart.

Facilities

With the corporate establishment of the Automatic Electric Company in 1901, the facilities of the Automatic Electric Company were located in a six-story complex erected at the intersection of Morgan Street and Van Buren Street in the western part of Chicago. In 1957, Automatic Electric was relocated to

Northlake, Illinois Northlake is a city in Leyden Township and Proviso Township, Cook County, Illinois, United States. The population was 12,840 at the 2020 census. The city's moniker is "The City of Friendly People". The name "Northlake" comes from two streets, N ...

, and maintained research and development facilities in Melrose Park and Elmhurst, Illinois. The company acquired a manufacturing facility in Genoa, Illinois, from Leich Electric, and, in 1978, opened a research and development branch in

Phoenix, Arizona Phoenix ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities and towns in Arizona#List of cities and towns, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona. With over 1.6 million residents at the 2020 census, it is the ...

. In the mid-1960s, a manufacturing plant was built in

Huntsville, Alabama Huntsville is the List of municipalities in Alabama, most populous city in the U.S. state of Alabama. The population of the city is estimated to be 241,114 in 2024, making it the List of United States cities by population, 100th-most populous ...

. Public coin-operated telephones and the ''Styleline'' series of consumer telephones were manufactured there. A smaller rental telephone refurbishment operation was also moved to the Huntsville plant in the 1970s. The plant was closed in the mid-1980s as domestic labour and production costs rose sharply against overseas competitors. In Canada, Automatic Electric acquired Phillips Electric Works, a cable factory in

Brockville, Ontario Brockville is a city in Eastern Ontario, Canada, in the Thousand Islands region. Although it is the seat of the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville, it is politically Independent city, independent of the county. It is included with Leeds and ...

, in 1930. Telephones were manufactured at that facility from 1935 to 1953, when Automatic Electric sold the cable plant and built a 33-acre, $1.5 million telephone factory at 100 Strowger Boulevard. The Strowger Boulevard factory was sold to

BC Tel British Columbia Telephone Company, later known as BC Tel, was the telephone company operating throughout the province of British Columbia, Canada. For most of its history, BC Tel was one of several regional monopolies in Canada. In 1985, the Ca ...

(as Microtel) in 1979, then was owned by

Nortel Nortel Networks Corporation (Nortel), formerly Northern Telecom Limited, was a Canadian Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications and data networking equipment manufacturer headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario. It was founded in ...

(as Brock Telecom) from 1990 to 1999; it closed in 2002. The Phillips Cables factory closed in the 1990s and was later demolished. In England, the

Automatic Telephone Manufacturing Company The Automatic Telephone and Electric Company (originally the Automatic Telephone Manufacturing Company (ATM)) was a British telephone exchange manufacturer established in 1911. After several name changes and acquisitions, the company was merged ...

Ltd. operated a manufacturing plant in

Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...

. British Insulated Cables had founded the company in November 1911 to manufacture the Strowger system under licence from the Automatic Electric Company of Chicago. The first maker of automatic exchanges in the UK, this company (as of 1923) was one of four (later five) which manufactured equipment for Post Office-owned central offices; see

General Post Office The General Post Office (GPO) was the state postal system and telecommunications carrier of the United Kingdom until 1969. Established in England in the 17th century, the GPO was a state monopoly covering the dispatch of items from a specific ...

(GPO or BPO, a government department).. The company became part of International Automatic Telephone Co. in 1920, which changed name to Automatic Electric Co. in 1932 and then to Automatic Telephone and Electric Co. in 1936 to reflect a product range which included sidelines ranging from Xcel heating appliances to traffic signals.Automatic Telephone Manufacturing Co history
/ref> In the 1950s, two Automatic Electric factories were manufacturing in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

: Automatique Electric SA of

Antwerp Antwerp (; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of Antwerp Province, and the third-largest city in Belgium by area at , after ...

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

, and Autelco Mediterranea SATAP of

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

Products

As its principal product line, Automatic Electric manufactured automatic

stepping switch In electrical engineering, a stepping switch or stepping relay, also known as a uniselector, is an electromechanical device that switches an input signal path to one of several possible output paths, directed by a train of electrical pulses. The ...

es (specifically, "

Strowger switch The Strowger switch is the first commercially successful electromechanical stepping switch telephone exchange system. It was developed by the Strowger Automatic Telephone Exchange Company founded in 1891 by Almon Brown Strowger. Based on its ...

es") which had enabled Strowger's vision. These switches allowed customers to connect their own calls without operator assistance. Automatic Electric's

rotary dial A rotary dial is a component of a telephone or a telephone switchboard that implements a signaling technology in telecommunications known as pulse dialing. It is used when initiating a telephone call to transmit the destination telephone numb ...

makes a single clicking sound as it is released but is otherwise fairly silent, while Western Electric's rotary dial has a distinctive whirring sound as the dial returns to the normal position. Many Automatic Electric telephones use a distinctive dual-gong ringer, the low and high tones of which are a

perfect fifth In music theory, a perfect fifth is the Interval (music), musical interval corresponding to a pair of pitch (music), pitches with a frequency ratio of 3:2, or very nearly so. In classical music from Western culture, a fifth is the interval f ...

apart, in contrast to the typical third interval of most Western Electric ringers. The GTD-5 EAX, GTE Automatic Electric's digital class 4/ 5 central office telephone switch, was first deployed on June 26, 1982.

References

{{reflist 1901 establishments in Illinois 1983 disestablishments in Illinois Technology companies established in 1901 Technology companies disestablished in 1983 Defunct companies based in Chicago Manufacturing companies based in Chicago Defunct telecommunications companies of the United States Telecommunications companies established in 1901 Manufacturing companies established in 1901 American companies established in 1901 American companies disestablished in 1983