Telecommunications History

Telegraph: Samuel F.B. Morse demonstrated an electromagnetic telegraph in 1837 and won the U.S. patent; the same year, Charles Wheatstone and William Fothergill Cooke won the British patent. Morse transmitted the first long-distance telegraph message, "What hath God wrought" from Washington, D.C., to his assistant, Alfred Vail, in Baltimore on May 24, 1844. * Transatlantic cable: Completed in 1866 by American merchant and promoter Cyrus W.

Telegraph: Samuel F.B. Morse demonstrated an electromagnetic telegraph in 1837 and won the U.S. patent; the same year, Charles Wheatstone and William Fothergill Cooke won the British patent. Morse transmitted the first long-distance telegraph message, "What hath God wrought" from Washington, D.C., to his assistant, Alfred Vail, in Baltimore on May 24, 1844. * Transatlantic cable: Completed in 1866 by American merchant and promoter Cyrus W.

They vowed to focus on the music, not the impending silence. So on Sunday night, the men of the Ellis-Orpheus Choir lifted their voices for the last time in a final concert before a packed crowd at Riviera United Methodist Church in Torrance. The 112-year-old chorus, L.A.'s oldest men's choir, is disbanding because it has been unable to attract new members to replace those who have died or lost their voices to age, said choir director Randall Schwalbe.

In a move that would make California the first large region to receive video and interactive services via phone lines, Pacific Bell said Thursday it will spend $16 billion to connect much of the state in a high-speed, fiber-optic network by the end of the decade.

Federal regulators gave final approval to the biggest merger in telecommunications history Friday after AT&T Inc. agreed to major concessions to resolve an impasse over its purchase of BellSouth Corp. The $86-billion deal gives San Antonio-based AT&T a third of the nation's land lines, dominating local phone service in California and 21 other states.

California's biggest phone company is mishandling one of the largest business opportunities in the telecommunications industry's history, failing to efficiently deliver high-speed Internet access to excited consumers and disaffecting tens of thousands in the process, according to public records and state regulators.