AT&T used to have satellites called Telstar, before that Comstar. I assume that the T probably comes from that, and perhaps the ticker symbol as well. In the C-Band days, you had T1 (Telstar 310), T2 (Telstar 302), and T3 (Telstar 303).
"T" is in that rare group of 17 companies that have a single letter as their exchange symbol.
I'd say that is why they use it where ever possible.
"When stock symbols were invented in 1867 along with the stock ticker system, transmission speeds were slow, and to speed up communications the most actively traded stocks were given single letter designations (symbols on the New York Stock Exchange can be up to three letters), but they were issued very sparingly. Today, only 17 stocks of the 2,750 traded on the NYSE carry single-letter symbols.
As noted by
Matt Wasserman, the "T" ticker symbol was first used by American Bell, the predecessor of American Telephone and Telegraph Co. in 1888 on the Boston Stock Exchange, with
T standing for "Telephone".
In 1901, the company began trading under the ticker symbol "ATT" on the New York Stock Exchange. It went back to "T" in 1930, which is how the company's stock has traded ever since
When the company was acquired by SBC in 2005, the former Southwestern Bell Corporation took on the much better known name and iconic single letter stock symbol of AT&T."
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