Information AboutEasylink |
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HISTORY EasyLink began as a commercial Electronic Mail service offered by Western Union . It grew out of the company's Automatic Digital Network (AUTODIN) data communications project at the U.S. Department of Defense. The EasyLink service allowed users to send messages via E-mail , Telex , Fax , Telegram , mailgram, international cablegram, and overnight express delivery. Initially, e-mail could only be sent to other EasyLink subscribers. Later the company added interconnections to MCIMail, AT&T Mail, and X.400 . In addition, EasyLink also offered users the ability to have real-time telex conversations and had an information services package that included news from United Press International . Access to EasyLink could be had in one of three ways. A user could dial into the service with a Modem over a toll-free telephone number (though the user would be billed for connect time charges), with a modem through an X.25 service, or through a Western Union telex terminal. As Western Union's fortunes declined in the late 1980s, the company sold EasyLink to AT&T at the start of the 1990s. At the time, AT&T operated its own public electronic mail service, AT&T Mail, in competition with EasyLink. After AT&T purchased EasyLink, it operated the business as a separate entity. In early 2001, AT&T sold EasyLink to Swift Telecommunications. By this time most all e-mail usage moved from ADMD-like proprietary systems to the Internet and services like EasyLink were not profitable any more. In February of that same year, Mail.com agreed to purchase Swift Telecommunications, which included EasyLink. The merged company then changed its name to EasyLink Services Corporation and now provides transaction and message processing services for business. REFERENCES EXTERNAL LINKS |