International Bell Telephone Company
[3] As a result of anti-trust actions in the U.S., AT&T, its parent, sold its entire European division and IBTC's subsidiaries to the International Telephone & Telegraph Company in 1925, ending a 46-year presence on the continent.
[3] BTMC came under majority ownership by the telephone manufacturer Western Electric, and also established multiple other divisions as national companies across Continental Europe and Russia.
[6] The IBTC was created for "...the production, sale, purchase and leasing of equipment for telephony and telegraphy and everything directly or indirectly related to electricity"[1][6] Later, as demand for services bloomed, the Bell Telephone Company had insufficient operating funds to quickly increase the telephone exchange network, resulting in Western Electric buying out all 45% of the shares held by Bell in 1890.
[1] Ezra Gilliland of Western Electric helped establish the manufacturing arm, at which point a young university educated, multilingual American, Francis R. Welles, took over its leadership, with the title of "Administrateur Delegue".
By 1900, BTMC was also its new parent's (AT&T) main supplier of telephone systems to Asia, the Middle East and South America, and the facility had increased to a staff of 700 operating from a greatly expanded plant.
The Great War inflicted severe damage to BTMC's operations and production facilities, much of which was destroyed or seized by the invading German army.
The company's U.S. managers immediately departed for the United Kingdom or returned home, while many plant employees had been seconded to the Belgian army, or moved to other unoccupied countries.
Sired by Bell Telephone's Hubbard and Vail it would become the custody of Western Electric through share purchase, which then nurtured and raised it only to see its Belgian concession reclaimed by a nationalistic government.
[5] By the end of 1886, the Belgian division had a total 6,900 kilometers of telephone lines, and 3,532 subscribers in seven cities, including Brussels, Antwerp, Charleroi, Ghent, Verviers, and Liège.
[8] The Rotary machine switching system was manufactured in Antwerp from about 1913, and was used by several countries around the world including France, the Netherlands, Norway and New Zealand (but not as hoped by the British Post Office).
[5] By the end of 1886, the Netherlands division had a total of 3,700 kilometers of telephone line, plus 2,623 subscribers in eight cities, including Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, Groningen, Haarlem, and Arnhem.
IBTC established Sweden's first telephone company, Stockholms Bell Telefonaktiebolag, formed with the assistance of three former Swedish PTT superintendents named Lybeck, Bratt and Recin.
[9] When Bell's Swedish phone exchange formally opened in Stockholm on 1 September 1880, it had 121 subscribers, increasing to 218 later in the year, with the majority of its users belonging to government, business and upper-class homes.
[9] After 1883 the Bell subsidiary was forced to reduce its fees due to competition from another newly formed phone company, although it was also able to increase its subscriber base.
Significant criticism of AT&T (a monopoly) had emerged in the United States that domestic telephone system rates were higher than they needed to be, and that AT&T was using those revenues to subsidize its European operations.
