USTelecom

The United States Telecom Association (USTelecom) is an organization that represents telecommunications-related businesses based in the United States. As a trade association, it represent the converged interests of the country's telecommunications industry. Member companies represent a diverse set of communications-related businesses, including those that provide wireless, Internet, cable television, long distance, local exchange, and voice services. Members include large publicly traded communications carriers as well as small telephone cooperatives that serve only a few hundred customers in urban and rural areas. The organization was founded as the Independent Telephone Association of America in 1897, and represented the telecommunication industry of North America that was not affiliated with the Bell System led by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T).