{"id":39991,"date":"2026-02-08T09:49:57","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T09:49:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.otegroupmuseum.gr\/en\/whats-on\/news\/january-18-the-date-that-marked-the-life-of-vasilis-tsitsanis-2\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T09:50:00","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T09:50:00","slug":"february-8-1930-the-founding-of-aete","status":"publish","type":"ti-simvainei-sto-mou","link":"https:\/\/www.otegroupmuseum.gr\/en\/whats-on\/news\/february-8-1930-the-founding-of-aete\/","title":{"rendered":"February 8, 1930: the founding of AETE"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>On February 8, 1930<\/strong>, the Minister of Transport, Byron Karapanagiotis, signed a contract with representatives of the German company <strong>Siemens &amp; Halske<\/strong> an agreement granting the company the privilege of constructing and operating the <strong>telephone network of Athens-Piraeus<\/strong>, and <strong>the surrounding area<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The contract was ratified on <strong>April 30<\/strong> with the publication of <strong>Law 4547<\/strong>, which provided, among other things, for the establishment by Siemens of the <strong>Greek Telephone Company (AETE)<\/strong>. <strong>AETE<\/strong> would be responsible for the development of automatic telephony within the country, while the state-owned <strong>TTT service<\/strong> would remain responsible for <strong>manual telephony <\/strong>\u2014 long-distance, international, and small towns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>On August 9<\/strong> <strong>of the same year<\/strong>, work began on the construction of the building that would house <strong>AETE\u2019s automatic telephone exchange<\/strong>. In less than a year, the work was completed and on <strong>July 31, 1931<\/strong>, the newly constructed building at <strong>15 Stadiou Street<\/strong> was <strong>inaugurated<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>During the event, attended by representatives of political, military, and religious leaders, <strong>Ioannis Drosopoulos, president of AETE and governor of the National Bank<\/strong>, referred to the role that the company would play <strong>in upgrading telephony in the country, noting the expansion of automatic telephony<\/strong> &#8220;within the next two years and to other cities in Greece.&#8221; According to him, the automatic telephone service would initially serve approximately <strong>2,800 subscribers<\/strong>, who until then had been connected through the manual system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the following years, this vision began to be realized, with <strong>AETE<\/strong> expanding the automatic network mainly in Athens, Piraeus, and the suburbs, gradually adding more subscribers, without, however, covering the entire country. Despite technological advances, the telephone landscape remained fragmented, <strong>with automatic and manual systems coexisting<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>World War II<\/strong> caused serious damage to the telephone network, making its complete reconstruction necessary. In <strong>the post-war period<\/strong>, the Greek state now treated telecommunications as a <strong>strategic national infrastructure<\/strong>, inextricably linked to <strong>economic reconstruction<\/strong>, administrative cohesion, and national security, which led to a review of the operating status of <strong>AETE<\/strong>. The gradual nationalization and consolidation of scattered telecommunications operators culminated in <strong>1949<\/strong>, the <strong>Greek Telecommunications Organization (OTE)<\/strong> was established, which took over the <strong>unified development, operation, and modernization of the national telephone network<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On February 8, 1930, the Minister of Transport, Byron Karapanagiotis, signed a contract with representatives of the German company Siemens &amp; Halske an agreement granting the company the privilege of constructing and operating the telephone network of Athens-Piraeus, and the surrounding area. The contract was ratified on April 30 with the publication of Law 4547, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":40007,"menu_order":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"simvainei-categ":[138],"class_list":["post-39991","ti-simvainei-sto-mou","type-ti-simvainei-sto-mou","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","simvainei-categ-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>February 8, 1930: the founding of AETE - Otemuseum<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.otegroupmuseum.gr\/en\/whats-on\/news\/february-8-1930-the-founding-of-aete\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"February 8, 1930: the founding of AETE - Otemuseum\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"On February 8, 1930, the Minister of Transport, Byron Karapanagiotis, signed a contract with representatives of the German company Siemens &amp; Halske an agreement granting the company the privilege of constructing and operating the telephone network of Athens-Piraeus, and the surrounding area. 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