OT&T (Makko Oko)
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| Public Company | |
| Industry | Telecommunications Technology |
| Founders | Saqr Akbari |
Area served |  Makko Oko |
| Website | ott.com.mk |
OT&T Inc. (with OT&T being an abbreviation of its former name, Oko Telephone and Telegraph Company) is a publicly-traded, state-authorized, telecommunications company in the Empire of Makko Oko. It is the nation's largest wireless carrier and the world's largest corporation by holdings and assets. During the remainder of the 20th century, OT&T held an absolute monopoly over the phone industry, and, when it expanded into television in the early 1980's, held a virtual monopoly over that. OT&T's position of being a monopoly would not be challenged until the early 2000's when a change in public opinion and government policy led to directed attacks against the company, aiming to break them up or destroy them if failing. The government's case fell on deaf ears after the courts sided with OT&T, and then OT&T countersued and sought an injunction against the current government interfering with corporate affairs, which the courts approved. Up to 2027, OT&T has never successfully been broken up or taken down, however the monopoly they had on the phone industry has dwindled in recent years with more fierce competition.
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History
OT&T was started by Saqr Akbari, who was the CEO at the time of the Braitian Telephone Company (BTC) over in Cle Brait. At the Republic's establishment, everything was in the old way of life, much like many others once were, however, Cle Brait had established phone communications and the telegraph back in the late 50's and early 60's. Saqr saw an opportunity to become a dominant monopoly in a nation that was slugging behind everybody else, and so, after a successful board vote, incorporated a local division of BTC in the Republic on July 17th, 1968. Makko Oko was the first nation that BTC expanded to, and the government itself was rather excited by the prospect of having a working communications infrastructure, being limited to merely letters and word of mouth at the time.
The government was relatively hands-off because they didn't know much about the developments that had occurred, but only what they had been told. Saqr had an ambitious plan to network the entire continent of Elisia and allow communication to and from any nation on the continent quicker than a telegraph, which was also lacking in Makko Oko, along with international communications offshore. Delays upon delays plagued the first deployments and when the first exchanges finally came online, they were riddled with instability and the inability to dial any outside nation or outside exchange. These problems would plague the success of the company and put the future of the continent-wide network in jeopardy. Saqr would be unable to resolve them until the period of 1972-1973 when local companies, miners and the elite who had traveled abroad had poured money into advancing their quality of life at home.
After 1973, the nation's populace largely recognized BTC as "the phone company" and so much so that they tried to trademark the phrase domestically, but failed before the courts. Around this same time, competition started trying to show up in pockets around the nation, with some of them having been companies that handled tolling services for BTC, however, BTC was accused of using anti-competitive practices to maintain its dominant monopoly over the industry, and problems at home led to slip ups on this front that led to the cracks showing even further, enough for the government to file a lawsuit against the parent company over in Cle Brait, seeking to force a divestment of local operations, or a complete shutdown. This fight dragged on for over two years, and drained the resources of BTC that were already lower than in previous years due to steep competition from Vyrant trying to keep up, so the monopoly was their way of trying to keep a consistent revenue stream, but by 1977, BTC filed for bankruptcy and settled with the government on the case, agreeing to divest all domestic operations from itself in exchange for monetary compensation from the government. That figure was undisclosed.
In August 1977, the government announced that BTC's domestic operations had been sold successfully in parts to two local companies, those being Solegot and Stanford Cellular. The rest were sold to Peter Navarro who would later go on to incorporate Sun Satellite Communications and a small portion to the government. The parts that were sold were separate operations such as billing and manufacturing and separate service areas and the sell-off occurred through bidding. No one entity got a bigger share than the other, being considered an equal divestment of the company. The current name of the company, OT&T would come into place after Solegot and Stanford Cellular agreed to a partnership to form the Oko Telephone and Telegraph Company in early 1979, with the name being shortened a year later to OT&T. The government would take an interest in 1987 and get Solegot and Stanford Cellular to agree to a government buy-in, giving them 10% ownership over the entity.
In the year 2000, Stanford Cellular sold their stake in the entity to private investment firms and persons, officially removing the exclusive partnership that OT&T once was. At the time, Annie Stanford, the CEO, stated that they needed to focus on their own telephone company, and that "Stanford Cellular had began to be interlacing with OT&T's operations, and could interfere with one another's work"
