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=                   Standard Telephones and Cables                   =
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                             Introduction                             
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Standard Telephones and Cables Ltd (later STC plc) was a British
manufacturer of telephone, telegraph, radio, telecommunications, and
related equipment. During its history, STC invented and developed
several groundbreaking new technologies including pulse-code
modulation (PCM) and optical fibres.

The company was founded in 1883 in London as International Western
Electric by the Western Electric Company, shortly after Western
Electric became the telephone equipment supplier for the American
Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) in the United States. In
1925, Western Electric divested itself of all foreign operations and
sold International Western Electric to International Telephone and
Telegraph (ITT), in part to thwart antitrust actions by the American
government. In mid-1982, STC became an independent company and was
listed on the London Stock Exchange; for a time it was a constituent
of the FTSE 100 Index. It was bought by Nortel in 1991.


 Early days 
============
The company was established in 1883 as an agent for Western Electric,
which also had a factory in Antwerp, Belgium. The London operation
sold US-designed telephones and exchanges to fledgling British
telephone companies.  Because of the costs of importing products, the
company purchased a failing electrical cable factory at North Woolwich
in London, in 1898. In addition to making lead-sheathed cables, the
factory started assembling equipment from components imported from
Belgium and the US, and subsequently introduced manufacturing. The
company was incorporated as a British legal entity in 1910.

World War I brought its progress to a sudden halt. The company
contributed to the war effort in military communications with its
cable and wireless technologies. With radio technology rapidly
developing in the USA after the war, Western Electric had an advantage
when radio broadcasting was introduced in Britain. As well as
manufacturing radio receivers, the company, in a consortium with its
competitors, set up the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) in 1922.
Electron tube technology was commercially exploited.


 Inter-war growth 
==================
In 1925, Western Electric sold off its international operations, as
well as the general electrical equipment merchandizing operations. The
buyer of the international operations was the infant ITT Corporation,
founded by Sosthenes Behn less than ten years previously with an
aggressive and thrusting reputation. To fit with its other worldwide
operations, ITT renamed its new UK operation Standard Telephones and
Cables, its name implying a standard against which others would be
measured. The new organization employed entrepreneurial risk taking,
based on solid research and brave innovation.

In 1933, Brimar was established to manufacture American-pattern
electron tubes at Foots Cray, adjacent to the Kolster-Brandes factory.

Within a few years, multi-channel transmission (1932), microwave
transmission (1934), coaxial cabling (1936), the entire radio systems
for the liners Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth (1936-39), the patenting
of pulse-code modulation (1938) all contributed to the hey-day of
telephony's development.

Between 1939 and 1945, significant military work was undertaken with
many developments particularly with regard to aerial warfare:
communications, radar, navigational aids, and especially OBOE


 Emergence of telecommunications 
=================================
The 1950s were characterised by the establishment of television
broadcasting. Technical milestones were numerous and were crowned by
the coverage of Queen Elizabeth II's Coronation in 1953. The steady
spread of TV transmission and availability over Britain very often
used STC technology and equipment.

In other areas, ship-to-ship, ship-to-shore and civil aviation
communications took on modern characteristics with STC's products. In
time, international and intercontinental submarine telephone contact
became possible, feasible and then everyday. Questions of product and
installation quality and absolute reliability were overcome and STC
became a major player with its production unit in Southampton opened
in 1956. Coverage graduated from rivers, estuaries, the English
Channel, the North Sea, the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans. STC became
the world leader in this field after acquiring Submarine Cables Ltd in
1970.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, STC also supplied signalbox train
describer equipment to British Railways; for the 1949 installation of
power signalling in the North and South boxes at Doncaster, STC also
provided route setting panels for control of points and signals, using
a novel "sequential switch interlocking" format based around telephone
exchange switching technology.

Digital technology began to supplant analogue with Bell's invention of
transistors. STC's first PCM link in 1964 had waited nearly 30 years
for material technology to make it work.


 Digital age 
=============
In 1966, Charles Kao of STC's Standard Telecommunication Laboratories
in Harlow demonstrated that light rather than electricity could be
used to transmit speech and (more importantly) data accurately at very
high speeds. Again materials technology took time to catch up, but by
1977 a commercial fibre optic link had been installed in England.
Within ten years BT abandoned metal cables except at the subscriber's
premises. Before STC's demise, its plant at Wednesbury Street, Newport
came to dominate the recabling of the UK public telephone system.

In telephone switching apparatus, STC (New Southgate) was also a major
player. In 1971 the company installed a fully digital (PCM) controlled
telephone exchange at Moorgate in the City of London. It was a tandem
exchange, switching PCM multiplexes between several other exchanges.
Until 1980, STC's TXE4 analogue electronic switch was an early
replacement for electro-mechanical systems. Before a politically
engineered withdrawal in 1982, STC and its (now equally defunct)
partners Plessey and GEC, developed the fully digital System X switch
which is still in service in the UK as of 2005.


 Decline and sale 
==================
ITT Corporation needed to raise cash to fund continued development of
its System 12 telephone switching system and sold off all but a
minority shareholding of STC between 1979 and 1982.

With developments in computer technology influencing and stimulating
telecoms, the buzzword of the late 1980s became "convergence". An
attempt to enter the mainframe computer market with the takeover of
ICL led to financial strains. The rationale was the convergence of
computing and telecoms but the vision was too early. Almost
immediately, STC had financial problems and ICL was ring-fenced to
preserve it as a profit centre.  By 1991, with an ageing workforce,
loss of business from the newly privatised BT, production spread over
too many expensive sites and no clear leadership succession to its
former chairman, Sir Kenneth Corfield, STC was bought by Canadian
company Northern Telecom (Nortel).


                              Operations                              
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The company was based in the United Kingdom but also had an operation
in Australia, which was acquired by Alcatel Australia in 1987.


                           Further reading                            
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• Peter Young, 1983, 'Power of Speech: A History of Standard
Telephones and Cables 1883-1983', George Allen & Unwin;.  (London,
UK)


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