1.
Payphone (song)
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Payphone is a song performed by American pop rock band Maroon 5 featuring American rapper Wiz Khalifa. The song was released on April 17,2012, as the single from their fourth studio album. The song was written by Adam Levine, Benny Blanco, Ammar Malik, Robopop, Shellback and Khalifa and produced by Blanco, the song is a pop ballad and describes a romance that ended abruptly. It has received reviews from music critics, who praised the catchy melody and named it a radio success. Because of this, he must escape from a fleet of policemen, the video was positively received from critics, who considered it an enjoyable mini-action film. On the Billboard Hot 100, the song debuted at the three spot before peaking at number two. The song sold 493,000 copies in its first week, becoming the best sales week for a song by a group. It peaked at one in Canada for eight consecutive weeks. It also topped the charts in the United Kingdom, making it the bands first ever single to do so, Payphone was the worlds fifth best-selling single of 2012 with 9.5 million copies sold. Levine, Blanco, Shellback, and Malik also wrote the previous single Moves Like Jagger. The writing process started when Malik and Robopop constructed a piano line and they gave it to Levine, who wrote the lyrics. Blanco also wanted to throw a wrench into the Maroon 5 works by adding hip-hop flavor to the its sound, I love when things dont make sense, like and you dont hear him on the song at all. I like when bands dip into a different genre. For this, he commissioned Wiz Khalifa to write and rap a verse on Payphone, in an interview with Rolling Stone, Blanco told that five minutes before Khalifa arrived at the studio, he prepared the sound beds for the finger snap-driven portion of the jam. However, producer Max Martin, who was the producer of Overexposed, adjusted the chorus. Shellback recorded Payphone at Conway Studios in Los Angeles alongside Noah Mailbox Pasovoy, john Hanes mixed the song at Mixstar Studios in Virginia Beach and Phil Seaford was the mixing assistant. Jeremy Jbogs Levin and David D Silb Silberstein served as production coordinators, Khalifa appears as courtesy of Rostrum Records. Payphone was released as a single from Overexposed
2.
Telephone booth
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A telephone booth, telephone kiosk, telephone call box, telephone box or public call box is a small structure furnished with a payphone and designed for a telephone users convenience. In the United States and in parts of Canada, telephone booth is the commonly used term for the structure. Such a booth usually has lighting, a door to provide privacy, the booth may be furnished with a printed directory of local telephone numbers, and a booth in a formal setting, such as a hotel, may be furnished with paper and pen and even a seat. An outdoor booth may be made of metal and plastic to withstand the elements and heavy use, while an indoor booth may have more elaborate architecture, most outdoor booths feature the name and logo of the telephone service provider. The worlds first telephone box called Fernesprecherkiosk, was opened on January 12,1881 at Potsdamer Platz, to use it, one had to buy paper tickets called Telefonbillet which allowed for a few minutes of talking time. In 1899 it was replaced by a coin-operated telephone, william Gray is credited with inventing the coin payphone in the United States in 1889, and George A. The first telephone booth in London, England was probably installed near the Staple Inn in High Holborn in May 1903 and it was operated and located by the Grand Central Railway. Starting in the 1970s pay telephones were less and less commonly placed in booths in the United States, in many cities where they were once common, telephone booths have now been almost completely replaced by non-enclosed pay phones. In the United States this replacement was caused, at least in part, however, in the United Kingdom, telephones remained in booths more often than the non-enclosed set up. Although still fairly common, the number of phone boxes has declined sharply in Britain since the late 1990s due to the boom of mobile phones. Many locations that provide pay-phones mount the phones on kiosks rather than in booths—this relative lack of privacy, special equipment installed in some telephone booths allows a caller to use a computer, a portable fax machine, or a telecommunications device for the deaf. The user of the booth pays for the call by depositing coins into a slot on the telephone, with some telephones the deposit is made before making the call, and the coins are returned if the call attempt is unsuccessful. With other types of coins are not deposited until the call has been made. The deposit of coins then permits two-way conversation to proceed, calls may be paid for by entering a payment code on the telephones keypad, by swipe-card or by using a telephone card. Some pay phones are equipped with a reader that allows a caller to make payment with a credit card. It is also possible to place a call to a phone booth if the intended recipient is known to be waiting at the booth. The increasing use of phones has led to a decreased demand for pay telephones. In 2003, service provider Verizon announced that they would begin offering wireless computer connectivity in the vicinity of their phone booths in Manhattan, as of 2006 the Verizon wifi telephone booth service was discontinued in favor of the more expensive Verizon Wirelesss EVDO system
3.
Coin
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A coin is a small, flat, round piece of metal or plastic used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in quantities at a mint in order to facilitate trade. They are most often issued by a government, Coins are usually metal or alloy, or sometimes made of synthetic materials. Coins made of metal are stored in large quantities as bullion coins. Other coins are used as money in transactions, circulating alongside banknotes. Usually the highest value coin in circulation is less than the lowest-value note. In the last hundred years, the value of circulation coins has occasionally been lower than the value of the metal they contain. Exceptions to the rule of face value being higher than content value also occur for some bullion coins made of copper, silver, or gold, while the Eagle, Maple Leaf, and Sovereign coins have nominal face values, the Krugerrand does not. The first coins were developed independently in Iron Age Anatolia and Archaic Greece, India, Coins spread rapidly in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, throughout Greece and Persia, and further to the Balkans. Standardized Roman currency was used throughout the Roman Empire, important Roman gold and silver coins were continued into the Middle Ages. Fiat money first arose in medieval China, with the paper money. Early paper money was introduced in Europe in the later Middle Ages, the penny was minted as a silver coin until the 17th century. The first circulating United States coins were cents, produced in 1793, Coins were an evolution of currency systems of the Late Bronze Age, where standard-sized ingots, and tokens such as knife money, were used to store and transfer value. In the late Chinese Bronze Age, standardized cast tokens were made and these were replicas in bronze of earlier Chinese currency, cowrie shells, so they were named Bronze Shell. According to Aristotle and Pollux, the first issuer of coins was Hermodike of Kyme The earliest coins are associated with Iron Age Anatolia. Early electrum coins were not standardized in weight, and in their earliest stage may have been ritual objects, such as badges or medals, issued by priests. The first Lydian coins were made of electrum, a naturally occurring alloy of silver, most of the early Lydian coins include no writing, only an image of a symbolic animal. Anatolian Artemis was the Πὀτνια Θηρῶν, whose symbol was the stag, a small percentage of early Lydian/Greek coins have a legend
4.
Credit card
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The card issuer creates a revolving account and grants a line of credit to the cardholder, from which the cardholder can borrow money for payment to a merchant or as a cash advance. A credit card is different from a card, where it requires the balance to be repaid in full each month. In contrast, credit cards allow the consumers a continuing balance of debt, a credit card also differs from a cash card, which can be used like currency by the owner of the card. Credit cards have a printed or embossed bank card number complying with the ISO/IEC7812 numbering standard, the card numbers prefix, called the Bank Identification Number, is the sequence of digits at the beginning of the number that determine the bank to which a credit card number belongs. This is the first six digits for MasterCard and Visa cards, the next nine digits are the individual account number, and the final digit is a validity check code. Both of these standards are maintained and further developed by ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 17/WG1, Credit cards have a magnetic stripe conforming to the ISO/IEC7813. Many modern credit cards have a chip embedded in them as a security feature. In addition to the credit card number, credit cards also carry issue and expiration dates, as well as extra codes such as issue numbers. Not all credit cards have the sets of extra codes nor do they use the same number of digits. The concept of using a card for purchases was described in 1887 by Edward Bellamy in his utopian novel Looking Backward. Bellamy used the credit card eleven times in this novel, although this referred to a card for spending a citizens dividend from the government. Charge coins and other items were used from the late 19th century to the 1930s. They came in various shapes and sizes, with materials made out of celluloid, copper, aluminum, steel, each charge coin usually had a little hole, enabling it to be put in a key ring, like a key. These charge coins were given to customers who had charge accounts in department stores, hotels. A charge coin usually had the account number along with the merchants name. The charge coin offered a simple and fast way to copy a charge account number to the sales slip and this sped the process of copying, previously done by handwriting. It also reduced the number of errors, by having a form of numbers on the sales slip. Because the customers name was not on the coin, almost anyone could use it
5.
Debit card
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A debit card is a plastic payment card that can be used instead of cash when making purchases. It is similar to a card, but unlike a credit card. Some cards may bear a stored value with which a payment is made, in some cases, the primary account number is assigned exclusively for use on the Internet and there is no physical card. In many countries, the use of cards has become so widespread that their volume has overtaken or entirely replaced cheques and, in some instances. The development of debit cards, unlike credit cards and charge cards, has generally been country specific resulting in a number of different systems around the world, which were often incompatible. Since the mid-2000s, a number of initiatives have allowed debit cards issued in one country to be used in countries and allowed their use for internet. Unlike credit and charge cards, payments using a card are immediately transferred from the cardholders designated bank account. Debit cards usually also allow for instant withdrawal of cash, acting as the ATM card for withdrawing cash, merchants may also offer cashback facilities to customers, where a customer can withdraw cash along with their purchase. There are currently three ways that debit card transactions are processed, EFTPOS, offline debit and the Electronic Purse Card System, One physical card can include the functions of all three types, so that it can be used in a number of different circumstances. Some debit cards are branded with the logo of the national card as well as Maestro. The use of a card system allows operators to package their product more effectively while monitoring customer spending. Online debit cards require electronic authorization of every transaction and the debits are reflected in the user’s account immediately, some on-line debit systems are using the normal authentication processes of Internet banking to provide real-time on-line debit transactions. Offline debit cards have the logos of major credit cards or major debit cards and are used at the point of sale like a credit card. This type of debit card may be subject to a daily limit, transactions conducted with offline debit cards require 2–3 days to be reflected on users’ account balances. Smart-card-based electronic purse systems are in use throughout Europe since the mid-1990s, most notably in Germany, Austria, in Austria and Germany, almost all current bank cards now include electronic purses, whereas the electronic purse has been recently phased out in the Netherlands. Those prepaid debit cards that can be reloaded are also called reloadable debit cards, the primary market for prepaid debit cards has traditionally been unbanked people, that is, people who do not use banks or credit unions for their financial transactions. But prepaid cards also appeal to other users attracted by their advantages, and if a user has doubts about online security, using a prepaid debit card for online purchases protects their normal credit card from risk. If the card provider offers a website for letting you check the cards balance
6.
Telephone card
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A telephone card, calling card or phonecard for short, is a credit card size plastic or paper card, used to pay for telephone services. It is not necessary to have the card except with a stored-value system, knowledge of the access telephone number to dial. The system for payment and the way in which the card is used to place a telephone call vary from card to card, calling cards usually come equipped with PIN for user protection and security. Most companies require user to enter the PIN before granting access to the calling card’s funds, pINs often are printed on a piece of paper found inside the calling card’s packaging. Once the users makes their first call, some offer the option of eliminating the PIN altogether to speed up the calling process. Companies that sell virtual calling cards online typically PIN via email, a stored-value phonecard contains the balance available on the card. This balance can be read by a public payphone machine when the card is inserted into the card reader. This is superficially similar to an automated teller machine, but a stored-value card is more closely analogous to a change purse. Used primarily for payphones, stored-value systems avoid the time lag and expense of communication with a central database, there are several ways in which the value can be encoded on the card. The earliest system used a magnetic stripe as information carrier, similar to the technology of ATMs, the first magnetic strip phonecard, manufactured by SIDA, was issued in 1976 in Italy. The next technology used optical storage, optical phonecards get their name from optical structure embossed inside the cards. This optical structure is heated and destroyed after use of the units, visible marks are left on the top of the cards, so that the user can see the balance of remaining units. Optical cards were produced by Landis+Gyr and Sodeco from Switzerland and were popular early phonecards in many countries with first optical phonecards successfully introduced in 1977 in Belgium. The third system of stored-value phonecards is chip cards, first launched on a scale in 1986 in Germany by Deutsche Bundespost after three years of testing, and in France by France Télécom. Many other countries followed suit, including Ireland in 1990 and the UK circa 1994-1995, the initial microchips were easy to hack, typically by scratching off the programming-voltage contact on the card, which rendered the phone unable to reduce the cards value after a call. But by the mid-to-late 1990s, highly secure technology aided the spread of chip phonecards worldwide, making a prepaid or calling card call requires the user to make two calls. Regardless of the type of card it is necessary to dial a telephone number to connect to the calling card system. One is via a number, with larger companies offering this internationally
7.
Telephone number
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A telephone number serves as an address for switching telephone calls using a system of destination code routing. Telephone numbers are entered or dialed by a party on the originating telephone set. The exchange completes the call either to another locally connected subscriber or via the PSTN to the called party, telephone numbers were first used in 1879 in Lowell, Massachusetts when they replaced the request for subscriber names by callers connecting to the switchboard operator. Telephone numbers are dialed in conjunction with other signaling code sequences, such as vertical service codes. When telephone numbers were first used they were short, from one to three digits, and were communicated orally to a switchboard operator when initiating a call. As telephone systems have grown and interconnected to encompass worldwide communication, in addition to telephones, they have been used to access other devices, such as computer modems, pagers, and fax machines. The number contains the necessary to identify uniquely the intended endpoint for the telephone call. Each such endpoint must have a number within the public switched telephone network. Most countries use fixed length numbers and therefore the number of endpoints determines the length of the telephone number. It is also possible for each subscriber to have a set of numbers for the endpoints most often used. These shorthand or speed calling numbers are translated to unique telephone numbers before the call can be connected. Some special services have their own short numbers The dialing plan in some areas permits dialing numbers in the local calling area without using area code or city code prefixes. For example, a number in North America consists of a three-digit area code, a three-digit central office code. If the area has no area code overlays, seven-digit dialing may be permissible for calls within the area, for each large metro area, all of these lines will share the same prefix, the last digits typically corresponding to the stations frequency, callsign, or moniker. In the international network, the format of telephone numbers is standardized by ITU-T recommendation E.164. This code specifies that the number should be 15 digits or shorter. For most countries, this is followed by a code or city code and the subscriber number. ITU-T recommendation E.123 describes how to represent an international telephone number in writing or print, starting with a plus sign and the country code
8.
Digital divide
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A digital divide is an economic and social inequality with regard to access to, use of, or impact of information and communication technologies. The divide within countries may refer to inequalities between individuals, households, businesses, or geographic areas, usually at different socioeconomic levels or other demographic categories, the term digital divide describes a gap in terms of access to and usage of information and communication technology. Which characteristics or attributes are distinguished to describe the divide, income, education, age, geographic location, motivation, reason not to use, how sophisticated is the usage, mere access, retrieval, interactivity, intensive and extensive in usage, innovative contributions, etc. To what does the subject connect, fixed or mobile, Internet or telephony, digital TV, broadband, different authors focus on different aspects, which leads to a large variety of definitions of the digital divide. Each one of them seems equally reasonable and depends on the objective pursued by the analyst, traditionally the nature of the divide has been measured in terms of the existing numbers of subscriptions and digital devices. Given the increasing number of devices, some have concluded that the digital divide among individuals has increasingly been closing as the result of a natural. Recent studies have measured the digital divide not in terms of technological devices, as shown in the Figure on the side, the digital divide in kbit/s is not monotonically decreasing, but re-opens up with each new innovation. This is because a new kind of connectivity is never introduced instantaneously and uniformly to society as a whole at once, as shown by the Figure, during the mid-2000s, communication capacity was more unequally distributed than during the late 1980s, when only fixed-line phones existed. The most recent increase in digital equality stems from the diffusion of the latest digital innovations. The upper graph of the Figure on the shows that the divide between developed and developing countries has been diminishing when measured in terms of subscriptions per capita. In 2001, fixed-line telecommunication penetration reached 70% of society in developed OECD countries and this resulted in a ratio of 7 to 1 or a difference of 60%. During the next decade, fixed-line penetration stayed almost constant in OECD countries, while the rest of the started a catch-up. The lower graph shows the divide not in terms of ICT devices, while the average member of developed countries counted with 29 kbit/s more than a person in developing countries in 2001, this difference got multiplied by a factor of one thousand. This shows the importance of measuring the divide in terms of kbit/s, the International Telecommunications Union concludes that the bit becomes a unifying variable enabling comparisons and aggregations across different kinds of communication technologies. However, research shows that the divide is more than just an access issue. There are at least three factors at play, information accessibility, information utilization and information receptiveness, more than just accessibility, individuals need to know how to make use of the information and communication tools once they exist within a community. Internet connectivity can be utilized at a variety of such as homes, offices, schools, libraries, public spaces, Internet cafe. There are also varying levels of connectivity in rural, suburban, the gap in a digital divide may exist for a number of reasons
9.
Token coin
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In the study of numismatics, token coins or trade tokens are coin-like objects used instead of coins. The field of tokens is part of exonumia and token coins are token money, Tokens either have a denomination shown or implied by size, color or shape. Tokens are often made of metals, copper, pewter, aluminium, brass and tin were commonly used, while bakelite, leather, porcelain. In the case of currency issued by a company but also recognized by the state there is a convergence between tokens and currency. In their purest form, currency tokens issued by a crossed the boundary of merely being trade tokens when they were sanctioned by the local government authority. This was sometimes a measure resulting from a shortage of money or the governments inability to issue its own coinage. In effect, the organization behind the tokens became the regional bank, a classic example of this is the Strachan and Co trade tokens of East Griqualand in South Africa which were used as currency by the indigenous people in the region from 1874. Their initial success resulted from the scarcity of small change in this region from that time. Similarly, in times of inflation, tokens have sometimes taken on a currency role. An example of this is Italian or Israeli telephone tokens, which were good for the same service even as prices increased. New York City Subway tokens were also accepted sometimes in trade, or even in parking meters, coin-like objects from the Roman Empire called spintria have been interpreted as a form of early tokens. Their functions are not known from history, but they appear to have been brothel tokens or possibly gaming tokens. Medieval English monasteries issued tokens to pay for services from outsiders and these tokens circulated in nearby villages where they were called Abbots money. Also, counters called jetons were used as small change without official blessing, the token was in effect a pledge redeemable in goods but not necessarily for currency. These tokens never received official sanction from government but were accepted and circulated quite widely and this shortage was felt more keenly because of the rapid growth of trade in the towns and cities, and this in turn prompted both local authorities and merchants to issue tokens. These tokens were most commonly made of copper or brass, but pewter, lead, most were not given a specific denomination and were intended to pass as farthings, but there are also a large number of halfpenny and sometimes penny tokens. Halfpenny and penny tokens usually, but not always, bear the denomination on their face, most such tokens indicate the name of their issuer, which might either be his or her full name or initials. Where initials were provided, it was practice to provide three—one for the surname
10.
Mobile phone
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A mobile phone is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while the user is moving within a telephone service area. The radio frequency link establishes a connection to the systems of a mobile phone operator. Most modern mobile telephone services use a network architecture, and, therefore. Mobile phones which offer these and more general computing capabilities are referred to as smartphones, the first handheld mobile phone was demonstrated by John F. Mitchell and Martin Cooper of Motorola in 1973, using a handset weighing c.4.4 lbs. In 1983, the DynaTAC 8000x was the first commercially available mobile phone. From 1983 to 2014, worldwide mobile phone subscriptions grew to seven billion, penetrating 100% of the global population. In first quarter of 2016, the top smartphone manufacturers were Samsung, Apple, a handheld mobile radio telephone service was envisioned in the early stages of radio engineering. In 1917, Finnish inventor Eric Tigerstedt filed a patent for a pocket-size folding telephone with a thin carbon microphone. Early predecessors of cellular phones included analog radio communications from ships, the race to create truly portable telephone devices began after World War II, with developments taking place in many countries. These 0G systems were not cellular, supported few simultaneous calls, the first handheld mobile phone was demonstrated by John F. Mitchell and Martin Cooper of Motorola in 1973, using a handset weighing c.4.4 lbs. The first commercial automated cellular network was launched in Japan by Nippon Telegraph and this was followed in 1981 by the simultaneous launch of the Nordic Mobile Telephone system in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. Several other countries followed in the early to mid-1980s. These first-generation systems could support far more simultaneous calls but still used analog cellular technology, in 1983, the DynaTAC 8000x was the first commercially available handheld mobile phone. In 1991, the digital cellular technology was launched in Finland by Radiolinja on the GSM standard. This sparked competition in the sector as the new operators challenged the incumbent 1G network operators, ten years later, in 2001, the third generation was launched in Japan by NTT DoCoMo on the WCDMA standard. This was followed by 3. 5G, 3G+ or turbo 3G enhancements based on the high-speed packet access family, allowing UMTS networks to have data transfer speeds. By 2009, it had become clear that, at point, 3G networks would be overwhelmed by the growth of bandwidth-intensive applications. Consequently, the industry began looking to data-optimized fourth-generation technologies, with the promise of speed improvements up to ten-fold over existing 3G technologies
11.
Telus
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The company is based in the Vancouver, British Columbia area, it was originally based in Edmonton, Alberta, before its merger with BCTel in 1999. Teluss wireless division, Telus Mobility, offers HSPA+, and LTE-based mobile phone networks, Telus is the incumbent local exchange carrier in British Columbia and Alberta. Teluss primary competitors are Shaw Communications in the Western provinces, and Bell Canada, Telus is a member of the British Columbia Technology Industry Association. In 1995, it acquired Edmonton Telephones Corporation from the City of Edmonton making Telus the sole provider of service in Alberta. In 1996, Telus was introduced to the public as the consumer brand, in 1998, Telus and BCTel announced a proposed merger. The merger was completed in 1999, with the name slightly modified to Telus Corporation. While the merged company chose to retain the Telus name, it moved its headquarters from Edmonton to Vancouver, the merger created Canadas second largest telcom, with 22% of market share compared to Bell Canadas 42%. In 1966, the Anglo-Canadian Telephone Company, a subsidiary of General Telephone and Electronics of Stamford, Connecticut, Anglo-Canadian also owned BCTel, and GTE also owned services in Barbados, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago. In 1997, Groupe QuébecTel was established to own Québec Téléphone, following the merger of BCTel with Telus of Alberta, GTE sold its interests in Québec Téléphone to Telus in August 2000, which renamed it Telus Québec on April 2,2001. In late 2004, American telecom Verizon Communications sold its 20. 5% stake in Telus and this was so that Verizon could focus more on its own services. After the Telus-BCTel merger, unionized employees voted to certify the Telecommunications Workers Union as the bargaining agent for the expanded companys workforce. The TWU had previously been the union representing BCTel employees - it replaced the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers in Alberta, a labour dispute between Telus and the TWU began after the previous contract, negotiated with BCTel before the Telus merger, expired at the end of 2000. The next day the union went on strike, although the union referred to the dispute as a lockout. On July 25,2005, Telus blocked its Internet subscribers from accessing a website supporting striking union members, the company expressed concerns over content on the site, saying it identified employees crossing picket lines and encouraged disruptive behaviour, while the union alleged it amounted to censorship. An Alberta court injunction ordered the website, Voices For Change, to remove postings of Telus employee photos. The site owner agreed to comply and Telus unblocked the website, Telus and the TWU ratified a tentative agreement on November 18,2005, ending the dispute. The company again closed to new business in June 2012, in February 2013, Telus exchanged all non-voting shares into common shares on a one-for-one basis. In October 2013, Telus acquired minor mobile phone provider Public Mobile, in October 2008, Telus was named one of British Columbias Top Employers by Mediacorp Canada Inc. which was announced by The Vancouver Sun, The Province and the Victoria Times-Colonist
12.
Golden, British Columbia
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Golden is a town in southeastern British Columbia, Canada, located 262 kilometres west of Calgary, Alberta and 713 kilometres east of Vancouver. Much of the history is tied into the Canadian Pacific Railway. Mount 7, which is just southeast of town, is popular with paragliding, hang gliding, kicking Horse Pedestrian Bridge is the longest freestanding timber frame bridge in Canada. Planned as a community project by the Timber Framers Guild, volunteers from Golden were joined by carpenters and timber framers from the United States, the bridge structure is 150 feet long, with a 210, 000-pound Burr arch structure. The bridge was completed in September 2001, on March 26,2009, then-Mayor Aman Virk died suddenly of complications after suffering a heart attack while vacationing in India. Golden is located on Highway 1 and it is the terminus of Highway 95, connecting it to the United States via the rest of the East Kootenay region. The Trans-Canada Highway east of Golden has numerous upgrade projects ongoing to improve the roadway west of the Yoho National Park boundary. The Ten Mile Hill section of the project was recently completed, Golden has a climate with influences of the humid continental and semi-arid varieties. Summers are warm but rarely hot, with winters being somewhat moderated in comparison to areas east of the Rockies, Golden has a service-based economy, relying heavily on tourism and services for tourists. Unlike many other Canadian towns with population size, Golden boasts nine automobile repair shops that all offer a wide range of services and are open extended hours. Golden also features a number of hotels with mountain views that provide accommodation to both tourists and stranded drivers. Public education is provided by School District 6 Rocky Mountain which operates 3 primary schools, community College education is offered by the Golden Campus of the College of the Rockies. School District 6 website College of the Rockies website
13.
Bell Canada
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Bell Canada is a Canadian telecommunications and media company headquartered in Montreal, Quebec. Its subsidiary Bell Mobility is one of Canadas big three mobile telecommunications providers, while Bell TV provides direct-to-home satellite TV service, Bell Canadas principal competitors are Rogers Communications Canada in Ontario and Vidéotron General Partnership and Telus in Quebec. The company serves over 13 million phone lines and is headquartered at the Campus Bell complex in Montreal, Bell Canada is one of the main assets of the conglomerate BCE Inc. formerly known as Bell Canada Enterprises, Inc. BCE ranked number 262 on the 2011 edition of the Forbes Global 2000 list, Bell Canada operated as the Canadian subsidiary of the Bell System from 1880 to 1975. However, unlike the other regional Bell operating companies, Bell Canada had its own research, in March 1876 he successfully patented his invention in the United States under the title of Improvement In Telegraphy. His device later adopted the now used worldwide, the telephone. In exchange for 1,000 telephones to be provided to the Canadian market, the first supplier of telephones to Bell was a company established by Thomas C. Cowherd and his son James H. Cowherd, in a brick building in Brantford, Ontario. With a government-granted monopoly on Canadian long-distance telephone service, The Bell Telephone Company of Canada was serving 237,000 subscribers by 1914, since its early years The Bell Telephone Company of Canada, Ltd. had been known colloquially as The Bell or Bell Telephone. On March 7,1968, Canadian federal legislation renamed The Bell Telephone Company of Canada, Bell Canada extended lines from Nova Scotia to the foot of the Rocky Mountains in what is now Alberta. However, most of the given to meeting demand for service focused on major cities in Ontario, Quebec. Newfoundland and Labrador joined Canada with several companies, and a government operation that was transferred to the control of Canadian National Railways. Bell acquired interests in all Atlantic companies during the early 1960s, Bell acquired controlling interest in Maritime Telephone and Telegraph Company, later known as MT&T, which also owned PEI-based Island Telephone, and in Bruncorp, the parent company of NBTel in 1966. The purchase of MT&T was made despite efforts of the Nova Scotia legislature on September 10,1966, bell-owned MT&T absorbed some 120 independent companies, most serving fewer than 50 customers each. Bell-owned NewTel purchased the CNR-owned Terra Nova Tel in 1988, newtel, Bruncorp, MT&T and Island Tel later merged into Aliant in the late 1990s, in which Bell Canada now owns. On January 1,2011, Bell purchased the technology services company xwave. Independent companies appeared in areas of Ontario, Quebec and the Maritime provinces without adequate Bell Canada service. Alongside the acquisition of Charon Systems, Nexxlink now operates today as Bell Business Solutions—a division of Bell Canada, Quebec, however, still has large swaths of relatively rural areas served by Telus Québec and Télébec and by some 20 small independent companies
14.
SaskTel
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Saskatchewan Telecommunications Holding Corporation, commonly known as SaskTel, is a full service communications provider in Saskatchewan. In addition, SaskTel International offers software solutions and project consulting in countries around the world, SaskTel and its wholly owned subsidiaries have a workforce of approximately 4,000 full-time equivalent employees. Wireless Service SaskTel Select Wi-Fi is SaskTels Wi-Fi Services, available for SaskTel Wireless 4G and 4G LTE customers Wireless Internet CDMA network will shut down July 5,2017. Sasktel plans to launch voice over LTE in mid-2017, after it rolls out LTE to 99% of the Saskatchwan population by April 2017, consequently, all voice calls take place via its HSPA+ network. As of July 2016, Sasktels HSPA coverage reaches most of the half of Saskatchewan and its LTE network exists in larger cities. Available for SaskTel maxTV subscribers MySask411 is Saskatchewan’s original online directories and it has the most accurate local information available. MySask411. com and MySask411 App SecurTek is SaskTels Security Monitoring Services for Home, on October 1,1909, the Department expanded its system by purchasing the Bell Telephone Company, the Saskatchewan Telephone Company, and the Wapella-Harris Telephone Company. The newly acquired facilities consisted of 18 telephone exchanges,53 long-distance offices, among the telephone exchanges purchased were those in Estevan, Moose Jaw, North Battleford, Prince Albert, and Regina. In 1911, the D expanded further with the purchases of Saltcoats District Telephone Company, the North-Western Telephone Company, on December 1,1912, Yorkton was added to the provincial telephone system with the purchase of the North West Electric Company. SaskTel International, an owned subsidiary of SaskTel, was established in 1986 to market advanced telecommunications technologies, particularly fibre optic systems. SaskTel International has conducted business in over 40 countries, in 1984, SaskTel completed the worlds longest commercial fibre optic system,3,268 kilometres. In 1988, it developed the first fibre/coaxial hybrid network with pick-and-play Video-On-Demand, in 1994, it completed the installation and commissioning of telecommunications and control systems for the English Channel project. In 2002, it was the first to commercially deploy Internet Protocol video over digital subscriber line, in 2010, SaskTel, activated their new UMTS/HSPA+ network, now referred to as 4G. SaskTel’s new Fibre Optic Network capable of speeds of up to 200 Mbit/s. In 2013, SaskTel activated their LTE cellular network in Saskatoon, Regina, Weyburn, Moose Jaw, Estevan, North Battleford, Yorkton and Swift Current, now referred to as 4G LTE. In 2014, SaskTel received its third consecutive J. D. Power Award for Highest in Customer Satisfaction with Canadian Full-Service Wireless Carriers
15.
Canadian dollar
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The Canadian dollar is the currency of Canada. It is abbreviated with the dollar sign $, or sometimes Can$ or C$ to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies and it is divided into 100 cents. Canadas dollar is the fifth most held reserve currency in the world, accounting for approximately 2% of all global reserves, behind only the U. S. dollar, the euro, the yen and the pound sterling. In 1841, the Province of Canada adopted a new system based on the Halifax rating, the new Canadian pound was equal to four US dollars, making one pound sterling equal to 1 pound,4 shillings, and 4 pence Canadian. Thus, the new Canadian pound was worth 16 shillings and 5.3 pence sterling, the 1850s was a decade of wrangling over whether to adopt a sterling monetary system or a decimal monetary system based on the US dollar. In 1851, the Legislative Council and the Legislative Assembly passed an act for the purposes of introducing a sterling unit in conjunction with decimal fractional coinage. The idea was that the coins would correspond to exact amounts in relation to the U. S. dollar fractional coinage. This gold standard was introduced with the gold sovereign being legal tender at £1 = US$ 4.86 2⁄3, no coinage was provided for under the 1853 act. Sterling coinage was legal tender and all other silver coins were demonetized. The British government in principle allowed for a decimal coinage but nevertheless held out the hope that a unit would be chosen under the name of royal. However, in 1857, the decision was made to introduce a decimal coinage into the Province of Canada in conjunction with the U. S. dollar unit, in 1859, Canadian colonial postage stamps were issued with decimal denominations for the first time. In 1860, the colonies of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia followed the colony of Canada in adopting a system based on the U. S. dollar unit. In the following year, Canadian colonial postage stamps were issued with the shown in dollars. The U. S. dollar was created in 1792 on the basis of the weight of a selection of worn Spanish dollars. As such, the Spanish dollar was slightly more than the U. S. dollar, and likewise. In 1867, the colonies of Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia were united in a called the Dominion of Canada. In 1871, Prince Edward Island went decimal within the U. S. dollar unit, however, the currency of Prince Edward Island was absorbed into the Canadian system shortly afterwards, when Prince Edward island joined the Dominion of Canada in 1873. The Canadian Parliament passed the Uniform Currency Act in April 1871, tying up loose ends as to the currencies of the various provinces, the gold standard was temporarily abandoned during the First World War and definitively abolished on April 10,1933
16.
Alberta
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Alberta is a western province of Canada. With an estimated population of 4,196,457 as of July 1,2015, it is Canadas fourth-most populous province and its area is about 660,000 square kilometres. Alberta and its neighbour Saskatchewan were districts of the Northwest Territories until they were established as provinces on September 1,1905, the premier has been Rachel Notley since May 2015. Alberta is bounded by the provinces of British Columbia to the west and Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Territories to the north, and the U. S. state of Montana to the south. Alberta is one of three Canadian provinces and territories to only a single U. S. state and one of only two landlocked provinces. About 290 km south of the capital is Calgary, the largest city in Alberta, Calgary and Edmonton centre Albertas two census metropolitan areas, both of which have populations exceeding one million, while the province has 16 census agglomerations. Tourist destinations in the province include Banff, Canmore, Drumheller, Jasper, Alberta is named after Princess Louise Caroline Alberta, the fourth daughter of Victoria, Queen of Canada, and Albert, Prince Consort. Princess Louise was the wife of John Campbell, Marquess of Lorne, Lake Louise and Mount Alberta were also named in her honour. Alberta, with an area of 661,848 km2, is the fourth largest province after Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia. To the south, the borders on the 49th parallel north, separating it from the US state of Montana. The province extends 1,223 km north to south and 660 km east to west at its maximum width, with the exception of the semi-arid steppe of the south-eastern section, the province has adequate water resources. There are numerous rivers and lakes used for swimming, fishing, there are three large lakes, Lake Claire in Wood Buffalo National Park, Lesser Slave Lake, and Lake Athabasca which lies in both Alberta and Saskatchewan. The longest river in the province is the Athabasca River which travels 1,538 km from the Columbia Icefield in the Rocky Mountains to Lake Athabasca, the largest river is the Peace River with an average flow of 2161 m3/s. The Peace River originates in the Rocky Mountains of northern British Columbia and flows through northern Alberta and into the Slave River, Albertas capital city, Edmonton, is located approximately in the geographic centre of the province. It is the most northerly city in Canada, and serves as a gateway. The region, with its proximity to Canadas largest oil fields, has most of western Canadas oil refinery capacity, Calgary is located approximately 280 km south of Edmonton and 240 km north of Montana, surrounded by extensive ranching country. Almost 75% of the population lives in the Calgary–Edmonton Corridor. The land grant policy to the served as a means to populate the province in its early years
17.
Switchboard operator
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Each pair of plugs was part of a cord circuit with a switch associated that let the operator participate in the call. Each jack had a light above it that lit when the receiver was lifted. Lines from the office were usually arranged along the bottom row. Switchboard operators are required to have very strong communication skills. Before the advent of automatic exchanges, an operators assistance was required for anything other than calling telephones across a party line. Callers spoke to an operator at a Central Office who then connected a cord to the circuit in order to complete the call. Being in complete control of the call, the operator was in a position to listen to private conversations, automatic, or Dial systems were developed in the 1920s to reduce labor costs as usage increased, and to ensure privacy to the customer. As phone systems became more sophisticated, less direct intervention by the operator was necessary to complete calls. As well as the people that were employed by the networks, operators were required at private branch exchanges to answer incoming telephone calls. Today, most large organizations have direct-dial extensions, smaller workplaces may have an automated system which allows callers to enter the extension of the called party, or a receptionist who answers calls and performs operator duties. Operators employed in healthcare settings have other duties, such as entry, greeting patients and visitors, taking messages, triaging. Experienced, well trained operators generally command a higher salary, in January 1878 George Willard Croy became the worlds first telephone operator when he started working for the Boston Telephone Dispatch company. Emma was hired by Alexander Graham Bell, and reportedly, could remember every number in the directory of the New England Telephone Company. Emma Nutt became the first female telephone operator on 1 September 1878 when she started working for the Boston Telephone Dispatch company, more women began to replace men within this sector of the workforce for several reasons. The companies observed that women were generally more courteous to callers, however, a contributing factor to women entering this workforce was because womens labour was cheap in comparison to mens. Specifically, women were paid from one half to one quarter of a mans salary, attendant console Operator assistance Private branch exchange Telephone operator Telephone switchboard Media related to Telephone operators at Wikimedia Commons
18.
9-1-1
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9-1-1 is an emergency telephone number for the North American Numbering Plan, one of eight N11 codes. Like other emergency numbers around the world, this number is intended for use in emergency circumstances only, in approximately 96 percent of the U. S. the Enhanced 9-1-1 system automatically pairs caller numbers with a physical address. In the Philippines, the 9-1-1 emergency hotline has been available to the public since August 1,2016 and it is the first of its kind in Asia-Pacific region. It replaces the previous emergency number 117 used outside Davao City,999 is used in the United Kingdom and many British territories. 112 is the equivalent emergency number used in the European Union, in the US, some carriers, including AT&T, map the number 112 to the emergency number 9-1-1. In the earliest days of telephone technology, prior to the development of the rotary dial telephone, to place a call, the caller was required to pick up the telephone receiver, sometimes turn a magneto crank, and wait for the telephone operator to answer. The caller would then ask to be connected to the number they wished to call, in an emergency, the caller might simply say Get me the police, I want to report a fire, or I need an ambulance or doctor. Until dial service came into use, one could not place calls without operator assistance. The first known experiment with an emergency telephone number occurred in the United Kingdom in 1937. Winnipeg initially used 999 as the number, but switched numbers when 9-1-1 was proposed by the United States. In 1967, the Presidents Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice recommended the creation of a number that could be used nationwide for reporting emergencies. The Federal Communications Commission then met with AT&T in November 1967 in order to choose the number, in 1968, the number was agreed upon. AT&T chose the number 9-1-1, which was simple, easy to remember, dialed easily, Bevill reportedly answered the phone with Hello. At the City Hall with Fite was Haleyville mayor James Whitt, at the station with Bevill were Gallagher. The phone used to answer the first 9-1-1 call, a red model, is now in a museum in Haleyville, while a duplicate phone is still in use at the police station. In 1968, 9-1-1 became the emergency number for the United States. Calling this single provided a caller access to police, fire. The number itself, however, did not become known until the 1970s
19.
Toronto Transit Commission
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The Toronto Transit Commission is a public transport agency that operates bus, rapid transit, streetcar, and paratransit services in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Established in 1921, the TTC comprises four rapid transit lines with 69 stations, over 149 bus routes, and 10 streetcar lines. In 4th quarter 2012, the daily ridership was 2.76 million passengers,1,425,300 by bus,271,100 by streetcar,46,400 by intermediate rail. The TTC also operates paratransit service for the elderly and disabled. The TTC is the third most heavily used urban mass transit system in North America, after the New York City Transit Authority, public transit in Toronto started in 1849 with a privately operated transit service. In later years, the city operated some routes, but in 1921 assumed control over all routes, during this period, streetcars provided the bulk of the service. In 1954, the TTC adopted its present name, opened the first subway line, the system has evolved to feature a wide network of surface routes with the subway lines as the backbone. On February 17,2008, the TTC made many improvements, finally reversing more than a decade of service reductions. The Gloucester subway cars, the first version of TTC subway cars, another common slogan is The Better Way. The TTC has recovered about 70% of its costs from the fare box in recent years. From its creation in 1921 until 1971, the TTC was self-supporting both for capital and operations, deficits and subsidies soared throughout the 1970s and 1980s, followed by service cuts and a period of ridership decline in the 1990s, partly attributable to recession. Since then, the TTC has consistently been in financial difficulties, Service cuts were averted in 2007, though, when the Toronto City Council voted to introduce new taxes to help pay for city services, including the TTC. As a result, the TTC became the largest transit operator in Anglo-America not to receive provincial/state subsidies, the TTC has received federal funding for capital projects from as early as 2009. The TTC is also considered one of the costliest transit systems per fare price in North America, for the 2011 operating year, the TTC had a projected operating budget of $1.45 billion. Revenue from fares covered approximately 70% of the budget, whereas the remaining 30% originated from the city, in 2009 through 2011, provincial and federal subsidies amounted to 0% of the budget. In contrast to this, STM Montreal receives approximately 10% of its budget from the provincial government. The fairness of preferentially subsidizing transit in specific Canadian cities has been questioned by citizens, the TTC operated the ferry service to the Toronto Islands from 1927 to 1962, when it was transferred to the Metro Parks and Culture department. Gray Coach Lines was a suburban and regional intercity bus operator founded in 1927 by the TTC, Gray Coach used interurban coaches to link Toronto to points throughout southern Ontario
20.
Suicide prevention
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Suicide prevention is an umbrella term for the collective efforts of local citizen organizations, health professionals and related professionals to reduce the incidence of suicide. General efforts have included preventive and proactive measures within the realms of medicine and mental health, as well as public health, Suicide prevention is risky for health professionals in terms of practitioner emotional distress and risk for malpractice suits. Van Orden et al. posited that there are two major factors involved in suicide attempts, the first major factor is a desire for death and the second acquired capability. The acquired capability in this context is used because people naturally fear death, individuals who are suicidal often have tunnel vision about the situation and consider permanence of suicide as easy way out of a difficult situation. Other significant risk factors for suicide include psychiatric disorders, substance abuse, individuals who have good interpersonal social relationship and family support tend to have lower risk of suicide. People who have greater self-control, greater self-efficacy, intact reality-testing and those who are hopeful, having future plans or events to look forward to, and having satisfaction in life has normalized protective factors against suicide. In recognition of the need for comprehensive approaches to suicide prevention, while recent analyses suggest that suicide risk assessment does not work, the traditional approach has been to identify the risk factors that increase suicide or self-harm. The document calls for a public health approach to prevention, focusing on identifying patterns of suicide. Thus the American Association of Suicidology outlines 10 important suicide warning signs, listed below, Suicidal Ideation, thinking, talking, or writing about suicide, anxiety, agitation and unable to sleep or sleeping all the time. Social Withdrawal from friends, family, or society, Suicide gesture and suicidal desire are potentially self-injurious behaviors that a person may use to attain some other ends, like to seek help, punish others, or to receive attention. This behavior has the potential to aid an individual’s capability for suicide and can be considered as a suicide warning, Suicide prevention strategies focus on reducing the risk factors and intervening strategically to reduce the level of risk. Risk and protective factors, unique to the individual can be assessed by a mental health professional. Some of the strategies used to address are, Crisis intervention. Hospitalization for those with low adherence to collaboration for help and those who require monitoring & secondary symptom treatment, supportive therapy like substance abuse treatment, Psychotropic medication, Family psychoeducation and Access to emergency phone call care with emergency rooms, suicide prevention hotlines. etc. Restricting access to lethality of suicide means through policies and laws, creating & using crisis cards, An uncluttered card formatted readably that describes list of activities one should follow in crisis still the positive behavior responses settles in the personality. Registering with Support groups like Alcoholics Anonymous, Suicide Bereavement Support Group, therapeutic recreational therapy that improves mood. Motivating self-care activities like physical exercises and meditative relaxation, many methods of intervention have been developed to intercede before suicide is attempted. The general methods include, direct talks, screening for risks, lethal means reduction, each is explained in more detail below
21.
Deutsche Bundespost
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The Deutsche Bundespost was a state run business founded in 1950. It was initially the second largest federal employer during its time, after staff reductions in the 1980s, the staff was reduced to roughly 543,200 employees in 1985. The corporation was dissolved in 1995 under the first and second postal reforms that place in the German Post Office. Following the reforms, the former Deutsche Bundespost was broken into three public corporations, Deutsche Post AG, Deutsche Telekom, and Deutsche Postbank AG and it was created in 1947 in the Trizone as a successor to the Reichspost. Between 1947 and 1950 the enterprise was called Deutsche Post, until 1989 the Deutsche Bundespost was a state-owned operation. The Bundespost was developed according to a three-tier principle common in public administration in the Federal Republic of Germany, the upper stage consisted of the federal ministry for the post office and telecommunication system. The middle stage consisted of regional directorates and the state post office management under western Allied authority in West Berlin as of 1949/1955). The post office technical central office, telecommunication engineering central office, postal administration social office, the lower stage consisted of post office branches, postal giro savings bank offices and telecommunications office branches. The legal basis for the activity of the Bundespost was the postal administration act. A central goal of public administrative policy after 1924 was financial self-sufficiency, political goals, however, often superseded this goal. The Deutsche Bundespost was the largest employer in the Federal Republic, in 1985 it employed 543,200 people. After the dissolution of that ministry on 1 January 1998, those tasks were taken over by a new federal regulatory agency under the federal ministry for economics. Other functions were taken over by the ministry of finance. Some telecommunications functions were turned over to the ministry of the interior. For certain official and legal purposes, an institution for post. Postage stamps and postal history of Germany Deutsche Bundespost Berlin Deutsche Post of the GDR
22.
German language
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German is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol, the German-speaking Community of Belgium and it is also one of the three official languages of Luxembourg. Major languages which are most similar to German include other members of the West Germanic language branch, such as Afrikaans, Dutch, English, Luxembourgish and it is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, after English. One of the languages of the world, German is the first language of about 95 million people worldwide. The German speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of publication of new books. German derives most of its vocabulary from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, a portion of German words are derived from Latin and Greek, and fewer are borrowed from French and English. With slightly different standardized variants, German is a pluricentric language, like English, German is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects, with many unique varieties existing in Europe and also other parts of the world. The history of the German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the migration period, when Martin Luther translated the Bible, he based his translation primarily on the standard bureaucratic language used in Saxony, also known as Meißner Deutsch. Copies of Luthers Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region that translated words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Roman Catholics initially rejected Luthers translation, and tried to create their own Catholic standard of the German language – the difference in relation to Protestant German was minimal. It was not until the middle of the 18th century that a widely accepted standard was created, until about 1800, standard German was mainly a written language, in urban northern Germany, the local Low German dialects were spoken. Standard German, which was different, was often learned as a foreign language with uncertain pronunciation. Northern German pronunciation was considered the standard in prescriptive pronunciation guides though, however, German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire, which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe. Until the mid-19th century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of the Empire and its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Some cities, such as Prague and Budapest, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain, others, such as Pozsony, were originally settled during the Habsburg period, and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest and Bratislava as well as cities like Zagreb, the most comprehensive guide to the vocabulary of the German language is found within the Deutsches Wörterbuch. This dictionary was created by the Brothers Grimm and is composed of 16 parts which were issued between 1852 and 1860, in 1872, grammatical and orthographic rules first appeared in the Duden Handbook. In 1901, the 2nd Orthographical Conference ended with a standardization of the German language in its written form
23.
Public call office
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A public call office is a telephone facility located in a public place in India and Pakistan. It is also another name in the United Kingdom for a telephone box. In India, manned and automated versions of the service are in existence, BSNL, a public sector corporation, has the largest installation of PCOs in India. Mr. R. L. Dube, a Dept of Telecom officer, as of 2006 there were about 4.2 million PCOs operating in India, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. Private sector operators such as Reliance Infocomm, Tata Indicom, Hutch, Idea, there are two types of PCOs, landline and wireless. The wireless PCOs use two technologies, CDMA and GSM, Reliance and Tata Indicom are CDMA-based prepaid PCO connection providers. Airtel, Idea and Hutch are GSM-based prepaid PCO connection providers, initially, the Dept of Telecom, and later BSNL, MTNL and Airtel provided fixed landline postpaid PCO connections. BSNL and MTNL also provide prepaid PCOs, in BSNL, which is the largest public sector telecom company of India, its Bhopal Unit has for the first time started an Internet café on optical fiber. In Pakistan, PCOs are provided by Pakistan Telecommunication Company, Dancom, Worldcall and these companies usually provide calling-card-based domestic and international telecom services. In the US, manned and automated versions of the service are in existence, provided by operators like Verizon and SBC Telecom
24.
Italy
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Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
25.
Telecom Italia
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Telecom Italia is an Italian telecommunications company headquartered in Rome, which provides telephony services, mobile services, and DSL data services. The companys stock is traded in the Borsa Italiana, in 1925, the phone network was reorganised by Benito Mussolini cabinet and Stipel company was established in the same year. The original core of Telecom Italia includes also 4 more different companies, TIMO, Teti, TELVE, each of them worked in a specific geographical area. It was in 1964 that these companies merged in one single group and it was run by the Italian Ministry of Finance. SIP was a monopoly from 1964 to 1996 and Italian people had to pay the Canone Telecom in order to have a phone at home. Telecom Italia was officially created on 27 July 1994 by the merger of several telecommunication companies among which SIP, Iritel, Italcable, Telespazio and this was due to a plan of reorganization of the telecommunication sector presented by IRI to the Minister of Finance. In 1995, the mobile telephony division was spun off as TIM, interbusiness, Italy’s largest Internet network, was created and in the same period with TIN and the first ISPs, Internet became a reality in Italy too. By 2001, the company was in debt and was bought by Marco Tronchetti Provera, Telecom Italia Media, the Groups multimedia company was formed in 2003 from Seat Pagine Gialle, focussing its business on the television sector with La7 and MTV channels. After the reorganization of editorial activities, in 2005 Telecom Italia acquired Tin. it, the Telecom Italia Group also operates in South America, in Brazil as TIM Brasil, and in Argentina and Paraguay with Telecom Argentina Group. TIM Brasil has its headquarters in Rio de Janeiro. Telecom Italia had bigger debts in 2005, and, one year later, in 2007 the company was bought by Telco. Telefónica currently owns 46% of Telco, the company that controls 22% of Telecom Italia. In late 2013, Telefónica announced its intention to acquire the entirety of Telco by January 2014, in 2015, Telecom Italia Group started a rebranding process of the telephony and mobile businesses under the single TIM brand. In the same year, the Board of Directors approved the new division, the Infrastrutture Wireless Italiane, or INWIT. It was revealed in October 2015 that shareholders Vivendi would raise their stakes further in the company from its current level of 15. 49%, Telecom Italia Mobile illegally charged money for Internet providing renew subscriptions for 5 years to its customers during the free subscription renewals. On 8 August 2012, TIM Brasil became involved in a scandal in Brazilian news after the release of report by the Brazilian National Telecommunications Agency Anatel. The report points that on TIMs prepaid voice plan, called Infinity, in just one day,8.1 million calls were dropped and the total profit was approximately $2 million. It also operates in international services, for other operators and corporations
26.
Japan
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Japan is a sovereign island nation in Eastern Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asia Mainland and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea, the kanji that make up Japans name mean sun origin. 日 can be read as ni and means sun while 本 can be read as hon, or pon, Japan is often referred to by the famous epithet Land of the Rising Sun in reference to its Japanese name. Japan is an archipelago consisting of about 6,852 islands. The four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku, the country is divided into 47 prefectures in eight regions. Hokkaido being the northernmost prefecture and Okinawa being the southernmost one, the population of 127 million is the worlds tenth largest. Japanese people make up 98. 5% of Japans total population, approximately 9.1 million people live in the city of Tokyo, the capital of Japan. Archaeological research indicates that Japan was inhabited as early as the Upper Paleolithic period, the first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other regions, mainly China, followed by periods of isolation, from the 12th century until 1868, Japan was ruled by successive feudal military shoguns who ruled in the name of the Emperor. Japan entered into a period of isolation in the early 17th century. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan is a member of the UN, the OECD, the G7, the G8, the country has the worlds third-largest economy by nominal GDP and the worlds fourth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It is also the worlds fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer, although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, it maintains a modern military with the worlds eighth-largest military budget, used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. Japan is a country with a very high standard of living. Its population enjoys the highest life expectancy and the third lowest infant mortality rate in the world, in ancient China, Japan was called Wo 倭. It was mentioned in the third century Chinese historical text Records of the Three Kingdoms in the section for the Wei kingdom, Wa became disliked because it has the connotation of the character 矮, meaning dwarf. The 倭 kanji has been replaced with the homophone Wa, meaning harmony, the Japanese word for Japan is 日本, which is pronounced Nippon or Nihon and literally means the origin of the sun. The earliest record of the name Nihon appears in the Chinese historical records of the Tang dynasty, at the start of the seventh century, a delegation from Japan introduced their country as Nihon
27.
Nippon Telegraph and Telephone
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The Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation, commonly known as NTT, is a Japanese telecommunications company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. Ranked 65th in Fortune Global 500, NTT is the third largest telecommunications company in the world in terms of revenue, the company is incorporated pursuant to the NTT Law. While NTT is listed on Tokyo, Osaka, New York, and London stock exchanges, established as a monopoly government-owned corporation in 1952, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Public Corporation was privatized in 1985 to encourage competition in the telecom market. In 1987, NTT made the largest stock offering to date, because NTT owns most of the last mile, it enjoys oligopolistic control over land lines in Japan. In order to weaken NTT, the company was divided into a holding company, the NTT Law regulating NTT East and West requires them to serve only short distance communications and obligates them to maintain telephone service all over the country. They are also obligated to lease their unused optical fiber to other carriers at regulated rates, NTT Communications is not regulated by the NTT Law. In July 2010, NTT and South African IT company Dimension Data Holdings announced an agreement of an offer from NTT for Dimension Datas entire issued share capital. In late 2010, NTTs Japan-to-US transpacific network reached 400 Gbit/s, in August 2011, its network capacity was expanded to 500 Gbit/s. NTT East, NTT West, NTT Communications, NTT DoCoMo, NTT DoCoMo and NTT Data are listed on the stock markets. NTT East NTT West NTT Communications NTT MSC Verio Inc NTT America On July 28,2011 and it will power those Bloom fuel cells with biogas instead of natural gas to be more environmental-friendly. NTT Group Website, About NTT Group [Fiscal year ended March 31,2015 / As of March 31,2015, japans Telecom Privatization Finished NTT Group
28.
Long-distance calling
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In telecommunications, a long-distance call or trunk call is a telephone call made to a location outside a defined local calling area. Long-distance calls are charged a higher billing rate than local calls. The term is not necessarily synonymous with placing calls to another area code. Before direct distance dialing all long-distance calls were established by special switchboard operators even in exchanges where calls within the exchange were dialed directly. Completion of long-distance calls was time-consuming and costly as each call was handled by operators in multiple cities. Record keeping was more complex, as the duration of every toll call had to be manually recorded for billing purposes. In some countries, such as Canada and the United States, in 1892, AT&T built an interconnected long-distance telephone network, which reached from New York to Chicago, the technological limit for non-amplified wiring. The invention of loading coils extended the range to Denver in 1911 and this process, nevertheless, involved five intermediary telephone operators and took 23 minutes to connect by manually patching in the route of the call. On October 9,1876, Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas A. Watson talked by telephone to each other over a wire stretched between Cambridge and Boston. It was the first wire conversation ever held, yesterday afternoon the same two men talked by telephone to each other over a 3, 400-mile wire between New York and San Francisco. Dr. Bell, the inventor of the telephone, was in New York. They heard each other much more distinctly than they did in their first talk thirty-eight years ago, the ten digit call was connected automatically within 18 seconds. The first subscriber trunk dialling in the United Kingdom was deployed December 5,1958 with Elizabeth II placing a call from Bristol to Edinburgh. International calling After World War II, priority was given by AT&T in the USA, thus, when TAT-1 was opened for service, it was connected to international gateway offices at White Plains, NY and London that were already automated for domestic calls. These were designed to be able to automatically switch outward and inward international circuits as soon as common signalling standards could be negotiated, International Direct Dialling from London to Paris was first offered in March 1963, with Amsterdam following by the end of 1963. Operator-dialed transpacific calling to Hawaii, Japan, and Australia began with the completion of the COMPAC cable, also in 1963. By mid-1968, transatlantic cable capacity had increased to the point where scheduling calls between Western Europe, the UK, and USA was no necessary and calls were completed on demand. Transatlantic International Direct Dialing between New York City and London was introduced in 1970, with service extended to the whole of the USA and this smart network was further refined to provide toll-free number portability in the 1990s
29.
Dissolution of the Soviet Union
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The Soviet Union was dissolved on December 26,1991. It was a result of the declaration number 142-Н of the Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union and that evening at 7,32, the Soviet flag was lowered from the Kremlin for the last time and replaced with the pre-revolutionary Russian flag. Previously, from August to December, all the individual republics, the week before the unions formal dissolution,11 republics signed the Alma-Ata Protocol formally establishing the CIS and declaring that the Soviet Union had ceased to exist. The Revolutions of 1989 and the dissolution of the USSR also signalled the end of the Cold War, on the other hand, only the Baltic states have joined NATO and the European Union. Mikhail Gorbachev was elected General Secretary by the Politburo on March 11,1985, Gorbachev, aged 54, was the youngest member of the Politburo. His initial goal as general secretary was to revive the Soviet economy, the reforms began with personnel changes of senior Brezhnev-era officials who would impede political and economic change. On April 23,1985, Gorbachev brought two protégés, Yegor Ligachev and Nikolai Ryzhkov, into the Politburo as full members. He kept the power ministries happy by promoting KGB Head Viktor Chebrikov from candidate to full member and this liberalisation, however, fostered nationalist movements and ethnic disputes within the Soviet Union. Under Gorbachevs leadership, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1989 introduced limited competitive elections to a new central legislature, in May 1985, Gorbachev delivered a speech in Leningrad advocating reforms and an anti-alcohol campaign to tackle widespread alcoholism. Prices of vodka, wine, and beer were raised in order to make these drinks more expensive and a disincentive to consumers, unlike most forms of rationing intended to conserve scarce goods, this was done to restrict sales with the overt goal of curtailing drunkenness. Gorbachevs plan also included billboards promoting sobriety, increased penalties for public drunkenness, however, Gorbachev soon faced the same adverse economic reaction to his prohibition as did the last Tsar. The disincentivization of alcohol consumption was a blow to the state budget according to Alexander Yakovlev. Alcohol production migrated to the market, or through moonshining as some made bathtub vodka with homegrown potatoes. The purpose of these reforms, however, was to prop up the centrally planned economy, unlike later reforms. The latter, disparaged as Mr Nyet in the West, had served for 28 years as Minister of Foreign Affairs, gromyko was relegated to the largely ceremonial position of Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, as he was considered an old thinker. In the fall of 1985, Gorbachev continued to bring younger, at the next Central Committee meeting on October 15, Tikhonov retired from the Politburo and Talyzin became a candidate. Finally, on December 23,1985, Gorbachev appointed Yeltsin First Secretary of the Moscow Communist Party replacing Viktor Grishin, Gorbachev continued to press for greater liberalization. The CTAG Helsinki-86 was founded in July 1986 in the Latvian port town of Liepāja by three workers, Linards Grantiņš, Raimonds Bitenieks, and Mārtiņš Bariss and its name refers to the human-rights statements of the Helsinki Accords
30.
Monetary reform in the Soviet Union, 1991
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Monetary reform of 1991 was the last of such in the Soviet Union. The reform had a confiscatory character and it began on January 22,1991. Its architect was Minister of Finance Valentin Pavlov, who was to become the last prime minister of the Soviet Union,22 January 1991 President of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev signed a decree on withdrawal from circulation and retirement of the 50- and 100-ruble banknotes of then-current 1961 issue. The signing of the Decree was reported on television at 21,00 pm Moscow time same day, by that time, virtually all financial institutions and shops were closed for the day. Some were able to send large remittances at late-open post offices, at railway stations, some managed to purchase advance rail and air tickets and pay with 50 - and 100-ruble banknotes with an intention to return then for refund in other banknotes. The exchange was a subject to significant limitations, Deadlines for exchange – for three days from 23 to 25 January. No more than 1,000 rubles per person − additional exchange was to be requested as an exception for consideration by a special commissions till the end of March 1991, however, actual exchange was also limited by the amount of cash available to exchange locations. Withdrawal at the Savings Bank of the USSR - the only bank in USSR was also limited to no more than 500 rubles per month per depositor. In reality, deposits in savings banks, including those in different cities, were allowed. Unpopular shock therapy reforms in the Soviet Union under the leadership of Pavlov continued, indian 500 and 1000 rupee currency demonetisation
31.
Saint Petersburg
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Saint Petersburg is Russias second-largest city after Moscow, with five million inhabitants in 2012, and an important Russian port on the Baltic Sea. It is politically incorporated as a federal subject, situated on the Neva River, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea, it was founded by Tsar Peter the Great on May 271703. In 1914, the name was changed from Saint Petersburg to Petrograd, in 1924 to Leningrad, between 1713 and 1728 and 1732–1918, Saint Petersburg was the capital of imperial Russia. In 1918, the government bodies moved to Moscow. Saint Petersburg is one of the cities of Russia, as well as its cultural capital. The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Saint Petersburg is home to The Hermitage, one of the largest art museums in the world. A large number of consulates, international corporations, banks. Swedish colonists built Nyenskans, a fortress, at the mouth of the Neva River in 1611, in a then called Ingermanland. A small town called Nyen grew up around it, Peter the Great was interested in seafaring and maritime affairs, and he intended to have Russia gain a seaport in order to be able to trade with other maritime nations. He needed a better seaport than Arkhangelsk, which was on the White Sea to the north, on May 1703121703, during the Great Northern War, Peter the Great captured Nyenskans, and soon replaced the fortress. On May 271703, closer to the estuary 5 km inland from the gulf), on Zayachy Island, he laid down the Peter and Paul Fortress, which became the first brick and stone building of the new city. The city was built by conscripted peasants from all over Russia, tens of thousands of serfs died building the city. Later, the city became the centre of the Saint Petersburg Governorate, Peter moved the capital from Moscow to Saint Petersburg in 1712,9 years before the Treaty of Nystad of 1721 ended the war, he referred to Saint Petersburg as the capital as early as 1704. During its first few years, the city developed around Trinity Square on the bank of the Neva, near the Peter. However, Saint Petersburg soon started to be built out according to a plan, by 1716 the Swiss Italian Domenico Trezzini had elaborated a project whereby the city centre would be located on Vasilyevsky Island and shaped by a rectangular grid of canals. The project was not completed, but is evident in the layout of the streets, in 1716, Peter the Great appointed French Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond as the chief architect of Saint Petersburg. In 1724 the Academy of Sciences, University and Academic Gymnasium were established in Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great, in 1725, Peter died at the age of fifty-two. His endeavours to modernize Russia had met opposition from the Russian nobility—resulting in several attempts on his life
32.
Subdivisions of Russia
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Russia is divided into several types and levels of subdivisions. Since March 18,2014, the Russian Federation consisted of eighty-five federal subjects that are constituent members of the Federation, however, two of these federal subjects—the Republic of Crimea and the federal city of Sevastopol—are internationally recognized as part of Ukraine. All federal subjects are of equal rights in the sense that they have equal representation—two delegates each—in the Federation Council. They do, however, differ in the degree of autonomy they enjoy, there are 6 types of federal subjects—22 republics,9 krais,46 oblasts,3 federal cities,1 autonomous oblast, and 4 autonomous okrugs. According to the Treaty, the Republic of Crimea is accepted as a subject with the status of a republic while the City of Sevastopol has received federal city status. Neither the Republic of Crimea nor the city of Sevastopol are politically recognized as parts of Russia by most countries and this was interpreted by the governments of the federal subjects as a sign that the matters of the administrative-territorial divisions became solely the responsibility of the federal subjects. As a result, the modern structures of the federal subjects vary significantly from one federal subject to another. Autonomous okrugs, while being under the jurisdiction of federal subject, are still constitutionally recognized as federal subjects on their own right. Chukotka Autonomous Okrug is an exception in that it is not administratively subordinated to any federal subject of Russia. Okrugs are usually former autonomous okrugs that lost their federal subject status due to a merger with another federal subject. According to the law, the units of the division are as follows, Municipal district. In practice, municipal districts are formed within the boundaries of existing administrative districts. In practice, urban okrugs are usually formed within the boundaries of existing cities of federal subject significance, intra-urban territory of a federal city, a part of a federal citys territory. In Moscow, these are called municipal formations, in St. Petersburg—municipal okrugs, towns, in Sevastopol, they are known as municipal okrugs and a town. Territories not included as a part of municipal formations are known as inter-settlement territories and this municipal formation type would typically be established within the borders of existing city districts. In June 2014, Chelyabinsky Urban Okrug became the first urban okrug to implement intra-urban divisions, all of the federal subjects are grouped into nine federal districts, each administered by an envoy appointed by the President of Russia. For economic and statistical purposes the federal subjects are grouped into twelve economic regions, economic regions and their parts sharing common economic trends are in turn grouped into economic zones and macrozones. In order for the Armed Forces to provide an efficient management of units, their training, and other operational activities
33.
Spain
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By population, Spain is the sixth largest in Europe and the fifth in the European Union. Spains capital and largest city is Madrid, other urban areas include Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Bilbao. Modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 35,000 years ago, in the Middle Ages, the area was conquered by Germanic tribes and later by the Moors. Spain is a democracy organised in the form of a government under a constitutional monarchy. It is a power and a major developed country with the worlds fourteenth largest economy by nominal GDP. Jesús Luis Cunchillos argues that the root of the span is the Phoenician word spy. Therefore, i-spn-ya would mean the land where metals are forged, two 15th-century Spanish Jewish scholars, Don Isaac Abravanel and Solomon ibn Verga, gave an explanation now considered folkloric. Both men wrote in two different published works that the first Jews to reach Spain were brought by ship by Phiros who was confederate with the king of Babylon when he laid siege to Jerusalem. This man was a Grecian by birth, but who had given a kingdom in Spain. He became related by marriage to Espan, the nephew of king Heracles, Heracles later renounced his throne in preference for his native Greece, leaving his kingdom to his nephew, Espan, from whom the country of España took its name. Based upon their testimonies, this eponym would have already been in use in Spain by c.350 BCE, Iberia enters written records as a land populated largely by the Iberians, Basques and Celts. Early on its coastal areas were settled by Phoenicians who founded Western Europe´s most ancient cities Cadiz, Phoenician influence expanded as much of the Peninsula was eventually incorporated into the Carthaginian Empire, becoming a major theater of the Punic Wars against the expanding Roman Empire. After an arduous conquest, the peninsula came fully under Roman Rule, during the early Middle Ages it came under Germanic rule but later, much of it was conquered by Moorish invaders from North Africa. In a process took centuries, the small Christian kingdoms in the north gradually regained control of the peninsula. The last Moorish kingdom fell in the same year Columbus reached the Americas, a global empire began which saw Spain become the strongest kingdom in Europe, the leading world power for a century and a half, and the largest overseas empire for three centuries. Continued wars and other problems led to a diminished status. The Napoleonic invasions of Spain led to chaos, triggering independence movements that tore apart most of the empire, eventually democracy was peacefully restored in the form of a parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Spain joined the European Union, experiencing a renaissance and steady economic growth
34.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
35.
Direct distance dialing
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Direct distance dialing is a telecommunication service feature in which a caller may, without operator assistance, call any other user outside the local calling area. Direct dialing by subscribers typically requires extra digits to be dialed as prefixes than for dialing within the area or within an area code. DDD also extends beyond the boundaries of national public telephone network, DDD was the term used when the North American Numbering Plan was implemented in the 1950s. In the United Kingdom and other parts of the Commonwealth of Nations, the equivalent terms are or were STD, for subscriber trunk dialing, the first direct-dialed long-distance telephone calls were possible in the New Jersey communities of Englewood and Teaneck starting on November 10,1951. Whitehorse, Yukon, had numbers from 1965, but the necessary switching equipment was not in place locally until 1972. The No.4 Crossbar switching system had been introduced in the 1940s to switch four-wire circuits and this design was further refined to serve DDD. The card sorter of the 4A/CTS allowed six digit translation of the office code number dialed by the customer. This determined the proper trunk circuits to use, where separate circuit groups were used for different cities in the area code, as in the case of Oakland. The new device used metal cards similar in principle to computer punched cards, on busy days, it sounded like a machine gun firing. CTS machines were called 4A if the translator was included in the original installation, a 1970s version of 4XB, the 4A/ETS, used a computer to translate. For international dialing, Traffic Service Position System provided the computer power. The reach of DDD was limited due to the inefficiency and expense of switching equipment, one obstacle was that the majority of switching gear did not provide Automatic Number Identification. Common control switches such as 1XB switch were fairly quickly retrofitted to provide ANI, panel switch were eventually retrofitted, as were some step-by-step that were not scheduled for immediate replacement. Even if a switch had ANI, it could not identify callers on party lines and this was only partly overcome by Tip Party Identification. As the cost of subscriber line carrier declined, party lines were phased out. In the 1960s, with the conversion still underway, plans were laid to extend Direct Dialing beyond North America. Gateway offices were set up in New York, London and Paris, the New York gateway was at 32 Avenue of the Americas. Other 5XB in the few years were installed with IDDD as original equipment
36.
Red telephone box
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The red telephone box, a telephone kiosk for a public telephone designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, was a familiar sight on the streets of the United Kingdom, Malta, Bermuda and Gibraltar. The colour red was chosen to make easy to spot. From 1926 onwards, the fascias of the kiosks were emblazoned with a prominent crown, the red phone box is often seen as a British cultural icon throughout the world. In 2006 the K2 telephone box was voted one of Britains top 10 design icons, which included the Mini, Supermarine Spitfire, London tube map, World Wide Web, Concorde and the AEC Routemaster bus. Although production of the boxes ended with the advent of the KX series in 1985. The paint colour used most widely today is known as currant red and is defined by a British Standard and this slightly brighter red was introduced with the K8 model in 1968, but went on to be used across the estate on previous models too. Hence, for historical accuracy, any kiosks in pre-1968 settings should really be painted in the previous. The first standard public telephone kiosk introduced by the United Kingdom Post Office was produced in concrete in 1920 and was designated K1 and this design was not of the same family as the familiar red telephone boxes. One early example is located in Trinity Market in Kingston-upon-Hull, where it is still in use, most survivors are the later version, with full height glazing – the Mk236. The Royal Fine Art Commission was instrumental in the choice of the British standard kiosk, because of widespread dissatisfaction with the GPOs design, the Metropolitan Boroughs Joint Standing Committee organised a competition for a superior one in 1923, but the results were disappointing. The original wooden prototypes of the entries were put into public service at under-cover sites around London. That of Scotts design is the one known to survive and is still where it was originally placed. The Post Office chose to make Scotts winning design in cast iron and to paint it red and, with minor changes of detail. From 1926 K2 was deployed in and around London and the K1 continued to be erected elsewhere, K3, introduced in 1929, again by Giles Gilbert Scott, was similar to K2 but was constructed from concrete and intended for nationwide use. Cheaper than the K2, it was significantly more costly than the K1. The standard colour scheme for both the K1 and the K3 was cream, with red glazing bars, K4 incorporated a post box and machines for buying postage stamps on the exterior. Only a single batch of 50 K4 kiosks were built, some contemporary reports said the noise of the stamp-machines in operation disturbed phone-users, and the rolls of stamps in the machines became damp and stuck together in wet weather. This has been repeated but Johannessen chose not to, having found no evidence to support the story
37.
BT Group
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BT Group plc is a holding company which owns British Telecommunications plc, a British multinational telecommunications services company with head offices in London, United Kingdom. It has operations in around 180 countries, BTs origins date back to the founding of the Electric Telegraph Company in 1846 which developed a nationwide communications network. In 1912, the General Post Office, a government department, the Post Office Act of 1969 led to the GPO becoming a public corporation. British Telecommunications, trading as British Telecom, was formed in 1980, British Telecommunications was privatised in 1984, becoming British Telecommunications plc, with some 50 percent of its shares sold to investors. The Government sold its stake in further share sales in 1991 and 1993. BT has a listing on the London Stock Exchange, a secondary listing on the New York Stock Exchange. BT controls a number of large subsidiaries, BT announced in February 2015 that it had agreed to acquire EE for £12.5 billion, and received final regulatory approval from the Competition and Markets Authority on 15 January 2016. The transaction was completed on 29 January 2016, BTs origins date back to the establishment of the first telecommunications companies in Britain. Among them was the first commercial service, the Electric Telegraph Company. As these companies amalgamated and were taken over or collapsed, the companies were transferred to state control under the Post Office in 1912. These companies were merged and rebranded as British Telecom, in January 1878 Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated his recently developed telephone to Queen Victoria at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. John Hudson, with his premises in nearby Shudehill. As the number of installed telephones across the country grew it became sensible to consider constructing telephone exchanges to allow all the telephones in each city to be connected together, the first exchange was opened in London in August 1879, closely followed by the Lancashire Telephonic Exchange in Manchester. From 1878, the service in Britain was provided by private sector companies such as the National Telephone Company. In 1896, the National Telephone Company was taken over by the General Post Office, in 1912 it became the primary supplier of telecommunications services, after the Post Office took over the private sector telephone service in GB, except for a few local authority services. Those services all folded within a few years, the exception being Kingston upon Hull. Converting the Post Office into an industry, as opposed to a governmental department, was first discussed in 1932 by Lord Wolmer. In 1932 the Bridgeman Committee produced a report that was rejected, in 1961, more proposals were ignored
38.
Manchester
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Manchester is a major city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England, with a population of 514,414 as of 2013. It lies within the United Kingdoms second-most populous urban area, with a population of 2.55 million, Manchester is fringed by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east and an arc of towns with which it forms a continuous conurbation. The local authority is Manchester City Council and it was historically a part of Lancashire, although areas of Cheshire south of the River Mersey were incorporated during the 20th century. Throughout the Middle Ages Manchester remained a township but began to expand at an astonishing rate around the turn of the 19th century. Manchesters unplanned urbanisation was brought on by a boom in textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution, Manchester achieved city status in 1853. The Manchester Ship Canal opened in 1894, creating the Port of Manchester and its fortunes declined after the Second World War, owing to deindustrialisation. The city centre was devastated in a bombing in 1996, but it led to extensive investment, in 2014, the Globalization and World Cities Research Network ranked Manchester as a beta world city, the highest-ranked British city apart from London. Manchester is the third-most visited city in the UK and it is notable for its architecture, culture, musical exports, media links, scientific and engineering output, social impact, sports clubs and transport connections. Manchester Liverpool Road railway station was the worlds first inter-city passenger railway station and in the city scientists first split the atom, the name Manchester originates from the Latin name Mamucium or its variant Mancunium and the citizens are still referred to as Mancunians. These are generally thought to represent a Latinisation of an original Brittonic name, both meanings are preserved in languages derived from Common Brittonic, mam meaning breast in Irish and mother in Welsh. The suffix -chester is a survival of Old English ceaster and their territory extended across the fertile lowland of what is now Salford and Stretford. Central Manchester has been settled since this time. A stabilised fragment of foundations of the version of the Roman fort is visible in Castlefield. After the Roman withdrawal and Saxon conquest, the focus of settlement shifted to the confluence of the Irwell, much of the wider area was laid waste in the subsequent Harrying of the North. Thomas de la Warre, lord of the manor, founded and constructed a church for the parish in 1421. The church is now Manchester Cathedral, the premises of the college house Chethams School of Music. The library, which opened in 1653 and is open to the public today, is the oldest free public reference library in the United Kingdom. Manchester is mentioned as having a market in 1282, around the 14th century, Manchester received an influx of Flemish weavers, sometimes credited as the foundation of the regions textile industry
39.
Cardiff
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Cardiff is the capital and largest city in Wales and the eleventh-largest city in the United Kingdom. The city is the chief commercial centre, the base for most national cultural and sporting institutions, the Welsh national media. The unitary authority areas mid-2011 population was estimated to be 346,100, the Cardiff metropolitan area makes up over a third of the total population of Wales, with a mid-2011 population estimate of about 1,100,000 people. Cardiff is a significant tourist centre and the most popular destination in Wales with 18.3 million visitors in 2010. In 2011, Cardiff was ranked sixth in the world in National Geographics alternative tourist destinations, the city of Cardiff is the county town of the historic county of Glamorgan. Cardiff is part of the Eurocities network of the largest European cities, the Cardiff Urban Area covers a slightly larger area outside the county boundary, and includes the towns of Dinas Powys and Penarth. A small town until the early 19th century, its prominence as a port for the transport of coal following the arrival of industry in the region contributed to its rise as a major city. Cardiff was made a city in 1905, and proclaimed the capital of Wales in 1955, since the 1980s, Cardiff has seen significant development. A new waterfront area at Cardiff Bay contains the Senedd building, home to the Welsh Assembly, sporting venues in the city include the Millennium Stadium, SWALEC Stadium, Cardiff City Stadium, Cardiff International Sports Stadium and Cardiff Arms Park. The city was awarded the title of European City of Sport twice, due to its role in hosting major sporting events, first in 2009. The Millennium Stadium hosted 11 football matches as part of the 2012 Summer Olympics, including the opening event. Caerdydd derives from the earlier Welsh form Caerdyf, the change from -dyf to -dydd shows the colloquial alteration of Welsh f and dd, and was perhaps also driven by folk etymology. This sound change had probably first occurred in the Middle Ages, Caerdyf has its origins in post-Roman Brythonic words meaning the fort of the Taff. The fort probably refers to that established by the Romans, the anglicised form Cardiff is derived from Caerdyf, with the Welsh f borrowed as ff /f/, as also happens in Taff and Llandaff. As English does not have the vowel the final vowel has been borrowed as /ɪ/, although some sources repeat this theory, it has been rejected on linguistic grounds by modern scholars such as Professor Gwynedd Pierce. A group of five Bronze Age tumuli is at the summit of The Garth, four Iron Age hill fort and enclosure sites have been identified within Cardiffs present-day county boundaries, including Caerau Hillfort, an enclosed area of 5.1 hectares. The fort was one of a series of military outposts associated with Isca Augusta that acted as border defences, the fort may have been abandoned in the early 2nd century as the area had been subdued. However, by this time a settlement, or vicus, was established
40.
Glasgow
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Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland, and third largest in the United Kingdom. Historically part of Lanarkshire, it is now one of the 32 council areas of Scotland and it is situated on the River Clyde in the countrys West Central Lowlands. Inhabitants of the city are referred to as Glaswegians, Glasgow grew from a small rural settlement on the River Clyde to become the largest seaport in Britain. From the 18th century the city grew as one of Great Britains main hubs of transatlantic trade with North America. Glasgow was the Second City of the British Empire for much of the Victorian era and Edwardian period, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries Glasgow grew in population, reaching a peak of 1,128,473 in 1939. The entire region surrounding the conurbation covers about 2.3 million people, at the 2011 census, Glasgow had a population density of 8, 790/sq mi, the highest of any Scottish city. Glasgow hosted the 2014 Commonwealth Games and is well known in the sporting world for the football rivalry of the Old Firm between Celtic and Rangers. Glasgow is also known for Glasgow patter, a dialect that is noted for being difficult to understand by those from outside the city. Glasgow is the form of the ancient Cumbric name Glas Cau. Possibly referring to the area of Molendinar Burn where Glasgow Cathedral now stands, the later Gaelic name Baile Glas Chu, town of the grey dog, is purely a folk-etymology. The present site of Glasgow has been settled since prehistoric times, it is for settlement, being the furthest downstream fording point of the River Clyde, the origins of Glasgow as an established city derive ultimately from its medieval position as Scotlands second largest bishopric. Glasgow increased in importance during the 10th and 11th centuries as the site of this bishopric, reorganised by King David I of Scotland and John, there had been an earlier religious site established by Saint Mungo in the 6th century. The bishopric became one of the largest and wealthiest in the Kingdom of Scotland, bringing wealth, sometime between 1189 and 1195 this status was supplemented by an annual fair, which survives as the Glasgow Fair. Glasgow grew over the following centuries, the first bridge over the River Clyde at Glasgow was recorded from around 1285, giving its name to the Briggait area of the city, forming the main North-South route over the river via Glasgow Cross. The founding of the University of Glasgow in 1451 and elevation of the bishopric to become the Archdiocese of Glasgow in 1492 increased the towns religious and educational status and landed wealth. Its early trade was in agriculture, brewing and fishing, with cured salmon and herring being exported to Europe, Glasgow was subsequently raised to the status of Royal Burgh in 1611. The citys Tobacco Lords created a water port at Port Glasgow on the Firth of Clyde. By the late 18th century more than half of the British tobacco trade was concentrated on Glasgows River Clyde, at the time, Glasgow held a commercial importance as the city participated in the trade of sugar, tobacco and later cotton
41.
Newsagent's shop
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A newsagents shop or simply newsagents, newsagency or newsstand is a business that sells newspapers, magazines, cigarettes, snacks and often items of local interest. In Britain, Ireland and Australia, these businesses are termed newsagents, Newsagents typically operate in busy public places like city streets, railway stations and airports. Racks for newspapers and magazines can also be found in stores, bookstores. The physical establishment can be freestanding or part of a larger structure. In Canada and the United States, newsstands are often open stalls in locations such as streets. In suburban areas and villages they are housed in a shop selling stationery, tobacco. A newsagent is the manager, often the owner of a newsagent shop, Newsagents conduct either a retail business and/or a distribution business. When they first started in Australia is unknown, the earliest reference known in Australia is an advertisement in 1855 in Melbourne, today there are more than 5000 individually owned and operated newsagencies. Retail newsagencies primarily offer a range of newspapers and magazines as well as stationery. Distribution newsagencies offer home delivery of a range of newspapers and magazines, These can be quite large. If authorised, they are fully computerized. They often have a territory, which is protected by contracts with most of the Australian Newsagents Federation recognised publishers/distributors. These recognised publishers/distributors include ACP Publishing, News Limited, Fairfax Publications, Rural Press and these monopolies have been a major source of contention between newsagents and the Australian Consumer Affairs. In suburban areas and villages they are housed in a shop selling stationery, tobacco. In Japan, newsagents shops are called kiosks, and are found in or around railway or subway stations. In addition to newspapers and magazines, they sell beverages, snack foods, postage stamps, cigarettes, ekiben boxed lunches can be purchased at larger kiosks in inter-city rail stations. In the United Kingdom, newsagents shops are small shops selling newspapers as well as magazines, sweets and tobacco, some of them also sell provisions, opening times vary according to the owners preferences. These family owned shops may carry purchasing group branding such as SPAR, Todays, alternatively the private owner choosing to do his own purchasing may carry advertising for a local paper, national news group or soft drinks brand externally
42.
Hartford, Connecticut
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Hartford is the capital of the U. S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960, as of the 2010 Census, Hartfords population was 124,775, making it Connecticuts third-largest city after the coastal cities of Bridgeport and New Haven. Census Bureau estimates since then have indicated Hartfords subsequent fall to fourth place statewide as a result of sustained growth in the coastal city of Stamford. Nicknamed the Insurance Capital of the World, Hartford houses many insurance company headquarters, founded in 1635, Hartford is among the oldest cities in the United States. In 1868, resident Mark Twain wrote, Of all the towns it has been my fortune to see this is the chief. Following the American Civil War, Hartford was the richest city in the United States for several decades, today, Hartford is one of the poorest cities in the nation with 3 out of every 10 families living below the poverty line. In sharp contrast, the Hartford metropolitan area is ranked 32nd of 318 metropolitan areas in total economic production, various tribes, all part of the loose Algonquin confederation, lived in or around present-day Hartford. The area was referred to as Suckiaug, meaning Black Fertile River-Enhanced Earth, the first Europeans known to have explored the area were the Dutch, under Adriaen Block, who sailed up the Connecticut in 1614. Dutch fur traders from New Amsterdam returned in 1623 with a mission to establish a trading post, the original site was located on the south bank of the Park River in the present-day Sheldon/Charter Oak neighborhood. This fort was called Fort Hoop, or the House of Hope, in 1633, Jacob Van Curler formally bought the land around Fort Hoop from the Pequot chief for a small sum. It was home to perhaps a couple families and a few dozen soldiers, the area today is known as Dutch Point, and the name of the Dutch fort, House of Hope, is reflected in the name of Huyshope Avenue. The fort was abandoned by 1654, but its neighborhood in Hartford is still known as Dutch Point, the Dutch outpost, and the tiny contingent of Dutch soldiers that were stationed there, did little to check the English migration. The Dutch soon realized they were vastly outnumbered, the House of Hope remained an outpost, but it was steadily swallowed up by waves of English settlers. The English began to arrive 1637, settling upstream from Fort Hoop near the present-day Downtown, the settlement was originally called Newtown, but was changed to Hartford in 1637 in honor of Stones hometown of Hertford, England. Hooker also created the town of Windsor. The etymology of Hartford is the ford where harts cross, the Seal of the City of Hartford features a male deer, which in full maturity was referred to by the medieval hunting term hart. The fledgling colony along the Connecticut River had issues with the authority by which it was to be governed because it was outside of the jurisdiction of the Massachusetts Bay Colonys charter. Historians suggest that Hookers conception of self-rule embodied in the Fundamental Orders went on to inspire the Connecticut Constitution, today, one of Connecticuts nicknames is the Constitution State
43.
Bell System
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On December 31,1983, the system was broken up into independent companies by a U. S. Justice Department mandate. Ma Bell is also used to refer to the female voices behind recordings for the Bell System, Mary Moore, Jane Barbe. In 1877, the American Bell Telephone Company, named after Alexander Graham Bell, opened the first telephone exchange in New Haven, within a few years local exchange companies were established in every major city in the United States. In 1899, American Telephone & Telegraph acquired the assets of its parent, originally American Bell had created AT&T to provide long-distance calls between New York and Chicago and beyond. AT&T became the parent of American Bell, and thus the head of the Bell System, because regulatory and tax rules were leaner in New York than in Boston, after 1934, AT&T was regulated by the Federal Communication Commission. Receiving a U. S. patent for the invention of the telephone on March 7,1876, Alexander Graham Bell formed the Bell Telephone Company in 1877, on April 30,1907, Theodore Newton Vail returned as President of AT&T. Vail believed in the superiority of one system and AT&T adopted the slogan One Policy, One System. This would be the philosophy for the next 70 years. Under Vail, AT&T began buying up many of the telephone companies including Western Union telegraph. Anxious to avoid action from government antitrust suits, AT&T entered into an agreement known as the Kingsbury Commitment with the federal government. S. The Bell trademark pictured here was used from 1921 through 1939 by both the AT&T corporation and the regional operating corporations to co-brand themselves under a single Bell System trademark, the regional operating corporations name was placed where name of associated company appears in this template version of the trademark. Bell system telephones and related equipment were made by Western Electric, member telephone companies paid a fixed fraction of their revenues as a license fee to Bell Labs. As a result of this monopoly, by 1940 the Bell System effectively owned most telephone service in the United States, from local. This allowed Bell to prohibit their customers from connecting phones not made or sold by Bell to the system without paying fees, Northern Electric was spun off in 1956 by Western Electric, but AT&T did not spin off Bell Canada until 1975. The Bell Systems Caribbean regional operating companies were sold to the ITT Corporation, before 1956, the Bell Systems reach was truly gargantuan. The 1984 Bell System divestiture brought an end to the branded as the Bell System. The suit was settled on January 8,1982, superseding the former restrictions that AT&T and the DOJ had agreed upon in 1956. Currently, the word mark Bell, the logo, and other related trademarks, are held by each of the remaining Bell companies, namely AT&T, Verizon, CenturyLink, and Cincinnati Bell
44.
Breakup of the Bell System
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This effectively took the monopoly that was the Bell System and split it into entirely separate companies that would continue to provide telephone service. This divestiture was initiated by the filing in 1974 by the United States Department of Justice of an antitrust lawsuit against AT&T, AT&T was, at the time, the sole provider of telephone service throughout most of the United States. Furthermore, most telephonic equipment in the United States was produced by its subsidiary and this vertical integration led AT&T to have almost total control over communication technology in the country, which led to the antitrust case, United States v. AT&T. The plaintiff in the court complaint asked the court to order AT&T to divest ownership of Western Electric, feeling that it was about to lose the suit, AT&T proposed an alternative — the breakup of the biggest corporation in American history. It proposed that it retain control of Western Electric, Yellow Pages, the Bell trademark, Bell Labs and it also proposed that it be freed from a 1956 anti-trust consent decree that barred it from participating in the general sale of computers. In return, it proposed to give up ownership of the operating companies. This last concession, it argued, would achieve the Governments goal of creating competition in supplying telephone equipment and supplies to the operative companies. The settlement was finalized on January 8,1982, with changes ordered by the decree court, the regional holding companies got the Bell trademark, Yellow Pages. This divestiture reduced the value of AT&T by approximately 70%. The breakup of the Bell System resulted in creation of seven independent companies that were formed from the original twenty-two AT&T-controlled members of the System. At the time of the breakup, these companies were, NYNEX, acquired by Bell Atlantic in 1996, now part of Verizon Communications Pacific Telesis, acquired by SBC in 1997, now part of AT&T Inc. Both of these companies were monopolies in their areas, received Western Electric equipment and had agreements with AT&T whereby they were provided with long distance service. The breakup led to a surge of competition in the long distance telecommunications market by companies such as Sprint, one consequence of the breakup was that local residential service rates, which were formerly subsidized by long distance revenues, began to rise faster than the rate of inflation. Long-distance rates, meanwhile, fell due both to the end of this subsidy and increased competition, the FCC established a system of access charges where long distance networks paid the more expensive local networks both to originate and terminate a call. In this way, the subsidies of the Bell System became explicit post-divestiture. These access charges became a source of controversy as one company after another sought to arbitrage the network. In 2002 the FCC declared that Internet service providers would be treated as if they were local and this led to VoIP service providers arguing that they did not have to pay access charges, resulting in significant savings for VoIP calls. However, an FCC order issued in December 2011 declared that all VoIP services would have to pay the charges for nine years, another consequence of the divestiture was in how both national broadcast television and radio networks distributed their programming to their local affiliated stations
45.
AT&T
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AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate, headquartered at Whitacre Tower in downtown Dallas, Texas. AT&T is the third-largest company in Texas, as of February 2017, AT&T is the 12th largest company in the world as measured by a composite of revenues, profits, assets and market valuation. AT&T is the largest telecommunications company in the world by revenue, as of 2017, it is also the 18th-largest mobile telecom operator in the world, with 135 million mobile customers. AT&T was ranked at #4 on the 2017 rankings of the worlds most valuable brands published by Brand Finance, Southwestern Bell changed its name to SBC Communications Inc. in 1995. In 2005, SBC purchased former parent AT&T Corp. and took on its branding, with the merged entity naming itself AT&T Inc. and using the iconic AT&T Corp. logo and stock-trading symbol. The current AT&T reconstitutes much of the former Bell System and includes ten of the original 22 Bell Operating Companies, AT&T can trace its origin back to the original Bell Telephone Company founded by Alexander Graham Bell after his invention of the telephone. This monopoly was known as the Bell System, and during this period, for periods of time, the former AT&T was the worlds largest phone company. In 1982, U. S. regulators broke up the AT&T monopoly, requiring AT&T to divest its regional subsidiaries and these new companies were known as Regional Bell Operating Companies, or more informally, Baby Bells. AT&T continued to long distance services, but as a result of this breakup, faced competition from new competitors such as MCI. Southwestern Bell was one of the created by the breakup of AT&T. The architect of divestiture for Southwestern Bell was Robert G. Pope, the company soon started a series of acquisitions. This includes the 1987 acquisition of Metromedia mobile business, and the acquisition of several companies in the early 1990s. In the later half of the 1990s, the company acquired several other companies, including some Baby Bells. During this time, the changed its name to SBC Communications. By 1998, the company was in the top 15 of the Fortune 500, in 2005, SBC purchased AT&T for $16 billion. After this purchase, SBC adopted the better-known AT&T name and brand, the current AT&T claims the original AT&Ts history as its own, though its corporate structure only dates from 1983. It also retains SBCs pre-2005 stock price history, in September 2013, AT&T announced it would expand into Latin America through a collaboration with Carlos Slims América Móvil. In December 2013, AT&T announced plans to sell its Connecticut wireline operations to Stamford-based Frontier Communications, in July 2015, AT&T purchased DirecTV for $48.5 billion, or $67.1 billion including assumed debt
46.
Verizon Communications
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The company is based at 1095 Avenue of the Americas in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, but is incorporated in Delaware. Bell Atlantic came into existence in 1984 with a footprint from New Jersey to Virginia, as part of the rebranding that the Baby Bells took in the mid-1990s, all of the operating companies assumed the Bell Atlantic name. In 1997, Bell Atlantic expanded into New York and the New England states by merging with fellow Baby Bell NYNEX, although Bell Atlantic was the surviving company, the merged company moved its headquarters from Philadelphia to NYNEXs old headquarters in New York City. In 2000, Bell Atlantic merged with GTE, which operated telecommunications companies across most of the rest of the country that was not already in Bell Atlantics footprint, Bell Atlantic, the surviving company, changed its name to Verizon, a portmanteau of veritas and horizon. As of 2016, Verizon is one of three companies that had their roots in the former Baby Bells, the other two, like Verizon, exist as a result of mergers among fellow former Baby Bell members. One, SBC Communications, bought out its former parent AT&T Corporation, the other, CenturyLink, was formed initially in 2011 by the acquisition of Qwest. Bell Atlantic Corporation was created as one of the original Regional Bell Operating Companies in 1984, in 1994, Bell Atlantic became the first RBOC to entirely drop the original names of its original operating companies. In 1996, CEO and Chairman Raymond W. Smith orchestrated Bell Atlantics merger with NYNEX, when it merged, it moved its corporate headquarters from Philadelphia to New York City. NYNEX was consolidated into this name by 1997, the approval came with 25 stipulations to preserve competition between local phone carriers, including investing in new markets and broadband technologies. The new venture was headed by co-CEOs Charles Lee, formerly the CEO of GTE, upon its inception, Verizon became the largest local telephone company in the United States, operating 63 million telephone lines in 40 states. The company also inherited 25 million mobile phone customers, additionally, Verizon offered internet services and long-distance calling in New York, before expanding long-distance operations to other states. The name Verizon derives from the combination of the words veritas, Latin for truth, the name was chosen from 8,500 candidates and the company spent $300 million on marketing the new brand. The companies established Verizon Wireless as its own business operated by Bell Atlantic, Vodafone retained 45% of the company. The deal was valued at approximately $70 billion and created a mobile carrier with 23 million customers, Verizon Wireless merged Bell Atlantics wireless network, Vodafones AirTouch and PrimeCo holdings, and the wireless division of GTE. Due to its size, Verizon Wireless was able to offer national coverage at competitive rates, in another partnership with MSN in 2002, Verizon Wireless launched the mobile content service VZW with MSN and a phone that utilized the Microsoft Windows operating system. In August 2000, approximately 85,000 Verizon workers went on an 18-day labor strike after their contracts expired. The strike affected quarterly revenues, resulting in Verizon Wireless postponement of the companys IPO, Verizon launched 3G service in 2002, which doubled the Internet speeds of the time to 144kb a second. In August 2002, Verizon began offering local, long-distance, and mobile calling, as well as Internet service and it was initially only available to customers in New York and Massachusetts
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