ISACOMM
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ISA Communications Services, Inc. (ISACOMM) was a long-distance telephone company headquartered in
Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...
. It was the first telephone company to offer a virtual network service to corporations and the first to offer
codec A codec is a computer hardware or software component that encodes or decodes a data stream or signal. ''Codec'' is a portmanteau of coder/decoder. In electronic communications, an endec is a device that acts as both an encoder and a decoder o ...
-based
videoconferencing Videotelephony (also known as videoconferencing or video calling) is the use of audio signal, audio and video for simultaneous two-way communication. Today, videotelephony is widespread. There are many terms to refer to videotelephony. ''Vide ...
services. The company was also a pioneer in shared tenant services, by which a commercial landlord includes telecommunications services in its lease package.


Formation

ISACOMM began as a concept within Insurance Systems of America (ISA), an Atlanta company founded in 1970 to write and license applications software for the insurance industry. Sensing an opportunity in the telecommunications market, ISA created ISACOMM in 1978. Several insurance companies took minority ownership positions in ISACOMM, but ISA retained majority ownership. The founders of ISACOMM were Richard C. Smith, an executive from ISA, and Kenneth H. Crandall, a principal in the creation of
Satellite Business Systems Satellite Business Systems (SBS) was a company founded by IBM, Aetna, COMSAT (and later wholly purchased by IBM and then subsequently sold to MCI), that provided private professional satellite communications through its SBS fleet of FSS geos ...
(SBS). Smith and Crandall were ISACOMM's CEO and CTO, respectively. Smith later became CEO of
Telcordia iconectiv supplies communications providers with network planning and management services. The company’s cloud-based information as a service network and operations management and numbering solutions span trusted communications, digital identi ...
.


Marketing

Customers of ISACOMM understood their relationship to be with ISACOMM, not SBS. As an interstate carrier, ISACOMM was subject to regulation by the
Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains j ...
and had to file its own tariffs, although progressive deregulation of the industry made the tariff process increasingly irrelevant. The original target market for ISACOMM was the insurance industry, with whom the ISACOMM management had strong connections arising from the history of ISA. However, ISACOMM quickly pursued the Fortune 500 (except for those corporations who were large enough to be served directly by SBS). ISACOMM did not sell long-distance services to consumers. ISACOMM's principal competitor was AT&T. The success of ISACOMM in winning customers away from AT&T, at the same time that MCI and Sprint were doing likewise, provided confirmation that open competition in the long-distance market was viable.


Technology

Beyond voice and data services, ISACOMM became a leader in
videoconferencing Videotelephony (also known as videoconferencing or video calling) is the use of audio signal, audio and video for simultaneous two-way communication. Today, videotelephony is widespread. There are many terms to refer to videotelephony. ''Vide ...
by installing videoconferencing rooms around the country, initially using the SBS network for connectivity and subsequently using its own earth station network. ISACOMM engineered each room and provided a centralized reservations facility. These videoconference rooms could be reserved by corporations on an hourly basis, under the brand of the ''Meeting Channel''. Arrangements were made with
Bell Canada Bell Canada (commonly referred to as Bell) is a Canadian telecommunications company headquartered at 1 Carrefour Alexander-Graham-Bell in the borough of Verdun, Quebec, in Canada. It is an ILEC (incumbent local exchange carrier) in the province ...
and
British Telecom BT Group plc (formerly British Telecom) is a British Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered in London, England. It has operations in around 180 countries and is the largest provider of fixed-li ...
to extend the videoconferencing capability over international circuits. ISACOMM operated its own "back office" for customer billing and network analysis. The back office was unusual in that it relied almost completely upon systems from
Tandem Computers Tandem Computers, Inc. was the dominant manufacturer of fault-tolerant computer systems for Automated teller machine, ATM networks, banks, stock exchanges, telephone switching centers, 911 systems, and other similar commercial transaction proc ...
. Tandem systems were originally bought by ISACOMM to power a transaction routing service that connected insurance companies with independent insurance agents, an early form of electronic commerce. ISACOMM was a reference account for Tandem in the telecommunications sector.


Evolution

In 1981, United Telecommunications, Inc. of Westwood, Kansas (United Telecom) acquired ISA, including its majority ownership of ISACOMM. United Telecom was developing its strategy to evolve from a local telephone company into a major player in the long-distance market. This strategy ultimately led to the deployment of a nationwide fiber optic network that replaced satellites as the basis for ISACOMM's services. In a series of M&A transactions, ISACOMM was pooled with US Telecom (which United Telecom separately acquired) and GTE's Sprint into a transitional joint venture between United Telecom and GTE known as US Sprint. ISACOMM became the National Accounts Division of US Sprint. Several years later, United Telecom acquired GTE's stake in the joint venture and adopted the Sprint name for the parent corporation. Sprint subsequently merged with Nextel to become
Sprint Nextel Corporation Sprint Corporation was an American telecommunications company. Before being acquired by T-Mobile US on April 1, 2020, it was the fourth-largest mobile network operator in the United States, serving 54.3 million customers as of June 30, 2019. Th ...
.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Isacomm Telecommunications companies of the United States Telecommunications companies established in 1970 Technology companies disestablished in 1981 Companies based in Atlanta 1970 establishments in Georgia (U.S. state) 1981 disestablishments in Georgia (U.S. state) 1981 mergers and acquisitions