he Bell Telephone Company of Canada. Sise got off to a rocky start: his domestic equipment supply was cut off when James Cowherd, operator of the world's first telephone manufacturing plant, died of tuberculosis. Worried that he would not find another supplier and would thus lose his Canadian patent rights, Sise decided to make his own telephone equipment. A year later, the manufacturing branch of The Bell Telephone Company of Canada was born, and became the Northern Electric and Manufacturing Company Limited in 1895. Technology marches on For 50 years, Northern Electric primarily made telephone equipment for Bell Canada, and also built television sets and radios. With the introduction of the electronic telephone switch during the 1960s, Northern Electric and Bell Canada decided to combine their research and development divisions and get a jump-start on the rapidly changing telecommunications market. The new R&D entity, called Northern Telecom, developed its first electronic switch, the SG-1, in 1972. But the electronic switch quickly became outdated with the arrival of digital technology. Northern Telecom sold its first digital switch in 1977. With the breakup of AT&T five years later, the company witnessed a decade of explosive growth. The company is now called Nortel Networks and operates in over 150 countries across the globe. Beyond the telephone Throughout much of the 1990s, Nortel sought to reinvent itself as not merely a maker of telephone equipment, but a leader in global communications and data networking 108 VAULT LIBRARY CAREER 2005 Vault Inc. Vault Guide to the Top Telecom Employers Nortel Networks Limited technology. Taking advantage of the 1996 deregulation of the telecommunications industry, Nortel sought to supply telephone companies with integrated networks, developing switches that can transmit packages of voice, video and Internet data over traditional phone lines. Expansion and restructuring The U.S. accounts for about half of Nortel's sales today; and like most other tech- centered companies