Bell Telephone Company companies and to provide further funds for expansion of its overall telephone infrastructure. On April 17, 1880, National Bell was split into the American Bell Telephone Company, led by Theodore Vail as general manager, and with the International Bell Telephone Company (IBTC) as a holding company for its international subsidiaries. IBTC's first non-North American subsidiary was the Bell Telephone Manufacturing Company (BTM), established by Hubbard at Antwerp, Belgium, in 1882. The Bell System's Bell Telephone Company of Canada subsidiary, wholly owned by the National Bell, had been established two years earlier. Alexander Graham Bell's ten shares of Bell Telephone Company
Invention of the telephone first person to suggest the idea of a telephone exchange". Bell has been widely recognized as the "inventor" of the telephone outside of Italy, where Meucci was championed as its inventor. In the United States, there are numerous reflections of Bell as a North American icon for inventing the telephone, and the matter was for a long time non-controversial. In June 2002, however, the United States House of Representatives passed a symbolic bill recognizing the contributions of Antonio Meucci ""in the invention of the telephone"" (not ""for the invention of the telephone""), throwing the matter into some controversy. Ten days