The year is 1880. Ontario has yet to celebrate its one hundredth birthday; the recent invention of the incandescent electric light has revolutionized people’s lives; and the automobile, the radio and the TV are still mere dreams in inventors’ minds. Into this world a dynamic company selling a new technology has just been born: the Bell Telephone Company of Canada. Out of its Montreal head office, Bell serves an impressive 2,165 subscribers.

How times have changed! Today Bell Canada has 7 million subscribers in Ontario, Quebec and the Northwest Territories. It is the largest telecommunications company in Canada and the largest privately-owned operating company in Ontario. In this province alone it employs 25 thousand people who help customers make 20 billion phone calls annually through the Bell network. It’s a far cry from the early days, but one thing has remained constant over time: Bell’s commitment to customer service.

Things were difficult for the company in the early years. Bell soon succeeded in gaining control of, or partnership in, telephone companies in five provinces, as well as in Newfoundland and the districts of Saskatchewan and Alberta. But the financial burden of such an undertaking, coupled with the problems of serving a sparse population spread out over an enormous area, proved to be too much. By the early 1900s Bell had sold off its interests in western Canada and in the Maritimes. But in central Canada Bell had become the phone company, and it remains so to this day.

By the time of the Great Depression, telephone communications had changed greatly. Bell proudly offered such conveniences as public payphones; dial calling through automatic telephone exchanges; better long-distance sound quality; and smart new tabletop phones equipped with handsets — a big improvement over the early wall units.

But the Depression sent the telecommunications industry into a slump from which it did not recover until the Second World War. With its huge demand for communications services, the war effort provided the industry with a much-needed boost. In Canada, Bell installed hundreds of switchboards for the military and for supporting industries and services. And it was Bell that provided the telecommunications equipment and services for the historic Quebec City conferences between Churchill, Roosevelt and Mackenzie King in 1943 and 1944.

By the end of the war, business was booming, and Bell Telephone — now 65 years old — installed its one millionth telephone. (Only eight years later, it would install the two millionth!)

1. Many of Canada's early telephone exchanges were installed in residences.  Bowmanville, Ontario, 1899; 2. Optical fibre, hair-like threads of pure glass, can carry voice, data, and video signals simultaneously.  Twelve strands of optical fibre can carry as much information as the bulky copper coaxial cable shown here.

Striving to become a leader in its field, Bell soon introduced Mobile Telephone Service and — the latest in technology — microwave transmission systems. Eventually it would be microwave that would carry phone, telegraph, data, radio-TV and computer communications into homes and offices everywhere.

Success followed upon success, and by the mid-50s Bell was being lauded for its construction of the world’s first tropospheric scatter system, which bounced high-power signals against the troposphere and recaptured them, back on earth, with large aerials. It was the first step into the world of space communications technologies that would soon follow.

Throughout the 50s and 60s, Bell led the field, with an array of innovative products and services that included the Touch-Tone phone, with a keypad that would one day enable customers to use it as a data terminal; and Phone-Fax, he first such service offered by a phone company anywhere.

But perhaps Bell’s most important contribution during this period was its development of digital technology, which revolutionized telecommunications in the 60s and 70s. Digital communications systems were more economical, smaller, provided higher quality service and offered new features not possible with existing analog systems.

It was also during this time that Bell decided to start marketing its expertise, systems and products in the international arena. Since the founding of Bell Canada International in 1969, more than 70 countries, including Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Japan, Australia, Mexico and Venezuela, have benefited from Bell technology and know-how.

Meanwhile Bell Canada’s research and development work continued unabated. By the 1980s the company was harnessing an extraordinary new technology called fibre optics. What digital technology was to the 60s and 70s, fibre optics will be to the coming decades. It will make communications easier and more efficient; it will simplify telecommunications systems and open up a world where users will have access to voice, image, data, or full motion video on demand, simply by dialling a phone number!

Today Bell remains in the vanguard of telecommunications. Its ALEX interactive communications service, introduced two years ago, was another first. With a phone hooked up to a computer, ALEX subscribers can access a network that lets them shop; pay bills; check real estate, theatre, and automotive sales listings; or plan a vacation — all without leaving their desks!

And this year Bell Canada will proudly unveil its historical exhibit at Brantford’s new Interactive Telecommunications Discovery Centre (icomm): an ultramodern educational centre with hundreds of exhibits on telecommunications, past and present.

As visitors stroll through the years at icomm, the staff of Bell Canada and its affiliated companies will already be hard at work researching and developing the new systems, products and services that will form the telecommunications world of the twenty-first century. And with every step along the way, these men and women will build on the dream of the young Alexander Graham Bell, who, so long ago, searched for a way to allow people to reach out and touch others through the world of technology.