This was the day James “Happy” Feller resigned from the Bell System. However, the idea for TeleDynamics goes back several years prior to that date. On February 25, 1974, Happy joined the Bell System under their Guidelines for Management Development Program (GMD). In April of that year, the Bell System opened their very first Phone Center in Austin, Texas. Happy was the original supervisor of that store. That store provided services for transient UT students with their leased phones as they came and went during their college years. With the development of the 4-pronged modular plug, the employees of the Bell System no longer had to physically visit each apartment and “hard wire” phones that would be disconnected at the end of the school year. The salary savings for the Bell System was immense. Within a few months, this small Austin experiment of customers doing their own installations caught the eye of Senior Bell Executives. The Bell System quickly realized this approach could provide substantial labor savings to their installation process. As a result, over the course of the next several years, the Bell System converted all “hard wired” customer premises to modularity to allow customers to pick up leased phones from the local phone center. In April of 1978, something very interesting happened that would change the course of the telephone industry forever. The FCC made a ruling that essentially stated: if an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) met certain manufacturing criteria, their product could be connected to the telephone network and the local phone company could not charge that customer a lease/rental fee for that piece of customer-owned equipment. Happy attempted to persuade his superiors to take advantage of this new opportunity in the telecom industry, realizing customers would ultimately choose to purchase telephones versus lease them. Unfortunately, Happy was met with stiff opposition. The executives in the Bell System did not see the advantage of selling phones and did not want to sacrifice the extreme profitability of phone leasing. After two additional years of failing to convince his superiors to consider selling equipment, Happy resigned from the Bell System and founded TeleDynamics on May 29, 1981 (in order to sell telephones). The Evolution of Customer Premise Equipment
In the early 1980’s, there was enormous growth in local “mom and pop” telephone stores. In addition, retailers were adding telephones to their consumer electronic offerings. Then, almost out of thin air, the “Power Retailer” emerged on the scene. In the blink of an eye, “mom and pop” stores and small regional retailers disappeared from the landscape. At the end of the 1980’s, the number of retailers was diminishing, however, the consumer phone business continued to grow rapidly. In the mid-1990’s, the Internet emerged as a dynamic new medium. This new technology enabled consumers to do a number of tasks instantaneously - including electronic commerce. For centuries, retailers were confined to their physical location(s). The number of products they could stock and sell was not only limited by the square footage of their store, but also by their financial means to procure inventory. The Internet and the digital revolution turned the retailing business upside-down. Now, a retailer can display thousands of items on their website with no concern for physical space limitations. “Just-in-time” fulfillment relieves financial demands upon retailers by not shipping products until payment is secured from the end consumer. Fulfillment services offered by companies like TeleDynamics remove the retailer’s necessity to stock, manage and ship inventory. Our Evolution:
Due to the incredible transformation brought about by the Internet, digital images and electronic commerce, TeleDynamics has vastly broadened our base of products to extend well past our original idea of simply selling telephones. In our 30 years of existence, we have seen many changes and transformations and it is our goal to continue to be adaptive and resilient. It is our hope our existence has benefited the many friends and trading partners we have worked with for these many years. We take a great deal of pride in our vendor and customer relationships and friendships. This love of all of our many associates is one aspect of our business that will never change. In the final analysis, the story of a company should be the many positive benefits it has provided all of its stakeholders. Please be assured we will continue to do our very best to ensure we strive for this ideal in all of our actions.
