Tech giant NEC Corp. of America has joined USTelecom, the association said Wednesday. 

USTelecom members include former Bells like AT&T and Verizon and tech companies like Cisco, Oracle and Ericsson. 

"For more than a century, NEC has set the pace in transformative technology, and we’re looking forward to bringing that expertise to our expanding roster of global innovators," said USTelecom president Jonathan Spalter. 

NEC, founded in 1899 in Japan as Nippon Electric Co., provides private and government network services, makes PCs, and has labs around the world, including a lab in China working on 5G wireless communications and machine learning. The company was a pioneer in digital signal processing.