Amtelco
Encyclopedia
Amtelco is a manufacturer of telecommunication
Telecommunication
Telecommunication is the transmission of information over significant distances to communicate. In earlier times, telecommunications involved the use of visual signals, such as beacons, smoke signals, semaphore telegraphs, signal flags, and optical heliographs, or audio messages via coded...

s equipment and telephone answering service and call center
Call centre
A call centre or call center is a centralised office used for the purpose of receiving and transmitting a large volume of requests by telephone. A call centre is operated by a company to administer incoming product support or information inquiries from consumers. Outgoing calls for telemarketing,...

 systems, founded in 1976.

History

Amtelco was founded in 1976 by Bill Curtin in the wake of the 1968 U.S. Federal Communications Commission
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...

 (FCC) ruling in the Carterphone case, which struck down existing tariffs prohibiting connection to the public telephone network
Public switched telephone network
The public switched telephone network is the network of the world's public circuit-switched telephone networks. It consists of telephone lines, fiber optic cables, microwave transmission links, cellular networks, communications satellites, and undersea telephone cables, all inter-connected by...

 of equipment not supplied by telephone operating companies.

Following the release of its TAS (Telephone Answering Service) Video system, Amtelco soon became a common name in the Telecommunications service
Telecommunications service
In telecommunication, the term telecommunications service has the following meanings:1. Any service provided by a telecommunication provider....

 industry, its product being one of the first computerized telephone switching
Telephone exchange
In the field of telecommunications, a telephone exchange or telephone switch is a system of electronic components that connects telephone calls...

 system in the marketplace, following the 1ESS switch
1ESS switch
The Number One Electronic Switching System, the first large-scale Stored Program Control telephone exchange or Electronic Switching System in the Bell System, was introduced in Succasunna, New Jersey, in May 1965. The switching fabric was composed of reed matrixes controlled by wire spring relays...

 and one designed by the British GPO Post Office Research Station
Post Office Research Station
The Post Office Research Station at Dollis Hill, London, was first established in 1921 and opened by Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald in 1933.In 1943 the world's first programmable electronic computer, Colossus Mark 1 was built by Tommy Flowers and his team, followed in 1944 and 1945 by nine...

 in the late 1960s . and now in the Science Museum in London.

The TAS system soon was succeeded by the EVE system; more powerful and taking advantage of early-model PCs and dumb terminals. By the late 1980s, AMTELCO's EVE (Electronic Video Exchange) system grew to become the most widely used business telephone answering equipment in the industry. Today, Infinity has replaced EVE as the flagship Telephone switching system.

EVE

EVE's best use is with a network on a dumb terminal. Each operator has a log in, with then can be given permission and routed calls based on experience. The screen is separated in to 4 parts. The top which states the operator name, whether the operator is turned on for receiving calls or not, the terminal number, and a date time group. Below that is a space that is capable of displaying 3 lines at once, with the ring count, call status, greeting, and what type of call it is. The bottom portion of the screen is split with individual account information contained on the left side, while the area to take a message is located on the right side. The operator must read the information on left side to decide how to dispatch a message, which will include instructions to e-mail, fax, print and snail mail, alpha page/text message, call/patch employees on call, or to even ignore messages from individuals.

EVE is a system that can run 64 serial ports at one time, taking messages for up to 10,000 accts and with only 1 pc strapped to it fax to 8
machines at one time while emailing, paging, and mirroring it's scsi drives all while switching 255 live calls. It can run for 6 months at a time without so much as a restart.

Additional Amtelco divisions

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