AT&T operated the first successful commercial communication satellite, Telstar 1, launched in 1962.
Telstar 1 was launched on July 10, 1962, by NASA for AT&T and Bell Telephone Laboratories. It relayed live television, telephone, and data signals between North America and Europe, demonstrating the practical potential of satellite communications.
The satellite was small by modern standards and traveled in low Earth orbit. Its operations were limited after radiation from high-altitude nuclear testing damaged its electronics, but it had already proved the value of international satellite links.
Telstar is sometimes confused with communications satellites that came later, such as Intelsat I, also known as Early Bird. Telstar 1 was an experimental commercial communications milestone; it was not a modern geostationary satellite.