History
Smart City is a full service communications service provider, having
emerged from the convergence of several communication service providers. Smart City
has deep roots in telephony, broadband data and cable television, with a significant
presence in the convention, hospitality and master planned community markets. Our
story is the story of two pasts.
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Baseball and a Better Way
The Houston Astros baseball team has always been a leader in new
innovations. From the first artificial turf and unique indoor
stadium, team owners were always looking for new and better ways
to do business. When the Bell telephone dynasty was split up in
the 1980’s, Astros owner Dr. John McMullen started his own
telephone company to serve the Astrodome. Teaming with Centel, a
New York Stock Exchange company and operating under the name
Centel Facilities Communications, the company combined the best
in telephone technology with hospitality flair at the Astrodome
and nearby Astrohall. Click for the full story.
Lured by the siren call of the Florida real estate boom in the
early 1900s, a young entrepreneur named Otto Wettstein cashed
out his Iowa telephone exchanges and moved to Sebring, Fla.,
hoping to make a killing in land speculation. Within a couple of
years he had burned through his $400,000 nest egg and returned
to his roots, taking a job at the Dade City telephone exchange.
By 1915 he had saved up enough money to buy the company and by
1925 had added six more exchanges to form the Florida Telephone
Corporation. By the start of World War II, Florida Telephone had
grown to 18 exchanges and was the dominant telephone company in
Central Florida. Click for the full story.
In March of 2001, Smart City acquired Vista-United
Telecommunications, the former regulated telecom company
operating as the telephone company to all of Walt Disney World
and its surrounding communities. Click for the full story.
Smart City will continue to evolve as the nation’s leading
provider of event technology services, meeting the ever changing
needs of our customers. Through our strategic partnerships with
the world’s most innovative technology companies, Smart City
will test and implement new products and services for the
technology leaders of today and tomorrow.
Click for the full
story.
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