GTE Corporation, formerly General Telephone & Electronics Corporation (1955–1982), was the largest independent telephone company in the United States during the days of the Bell System. The company operated from 1926, with roots tracing further back than that, until 2000, when it was acquired by Bell Atlantic; with the combined companies formed under the currently operating Verizon banner.
Global Crossing Limited, was a telecommunications company that provided computer networking services and operated a tier 1 carrier. It maintained a large backbone network and offered peering, virtual private networks, leased lines, audio and video conferencing, long-distance telephone, managed services, dialup, colocation centres and VoIP. Its customer base ranged from individuals to large enterprises and other carriers, with emphasis on higher-margin layered services such as managed services and VoIP with leased lines. Its core network delivered services to more than 700 cities in more than 70 countries.
A Regional Bell Operating Company (RBOC) was a corporate entity created as result of the antitrust lawsuit by the U.S. Department of Justice against the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) in 1974 and settled in the Modification of Final Judgment on January 8, 1982.
PAETEC Holding Corporation was a Fortune 1000 telecommunications company headquartered in Perinton, New York, United States. It was founded as the private company PaeTec Communications, Inc. in 1998 by Arunas A. Chesonis. In 2007 it merged with US LEC and then Cavalier Telephone Company and became a publicly traded company, and in 2011 it was acquired by Windstream Communications.
Rochester Telephone Corporation was a company that provided local telephone service to Rochester, New York. The company was founded in 1920 as a merger of Rochester Telephonic Exchange and Rochester Telephone Company. In 1995 the company became Frontier Corporation, trading on the NYSE under the FRO symbol. Ownership passed to Global Crossing in 1999, and then, in 2001, to Citizens Utilities Corporation, which later changed its name to Frontier Communications.
The monopoly position of the Bell System in the U.S. was ended on January 8, 1982, by a consent decree providing that AT&T Corporation would, as had been initially proposed by AT&T, relinquish control of the Bell Operating Companies, which had provided local telephone service in the United States. AT&T would continue to be a provider of long-distance service, while the now-independent Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs), nicknamed the "Baby Bells", would provide local service, and would no longer be directly supplied with equipment from AT&T subsidiary Western Electric.
Northwest Fiber, LLC, doing business as Ziply Fiber, is an American telecommunications company based in Kirkland, Washington. Ziply is a subsidiary of WaveDivision Capital, a private investment company, which is also Kirkland-based. The company started operations on May 1, 2020, when it completed its acquisition of Frontier Communications Northwest operations and assets for $1.4 billion; Frontier sold its Northwest operations after filing for bankruptcy protection in April 2020. Ziply Fiber's footprint covers the Pacific Northwest region, specifically the states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana. Its key offerings include fiber Internet and phone for residential customers, Business Fiber Internet, and Ziply Voice services for small businesses; and a variety of internet, networking and voice solutions for enterprise customers. The company will also continue to support DSL and grandfathered TV customers. Ziply has stated that it plans on investing $500 million to improve its network and service throughout its footprint. This includes the goal of bringing fiber to nearly 85% of its network, which mainly encompasses rural communities. As of June 2020, approximately 30% have access to fiber.
Qwest Corporation is a Regional Bell Operating Company owned by Lumen Technologies. It was formerly named U S WEST Communications, Inc. from 1991 to 2000. It was also named Mountain States Telephone and Telegraph Company–later Mountain Bell from 1911 to 1991. In the early 2010s the Mountain Bell name was resurrected by CenturyLink, Inc. In other words, Mountain Bell Telephone Company still exists but the MB corporate name is no longer used from 1991 and afterwards. Mountain Bell now does business as the Lumen Technologies. It includes the former operations of Malheur Bell, Northwestern Bell and Pacific Northwest Bell as well. The NWBT and PNB companies still exist but no longer use the names for marketing or as corporate identities.
Frontier Communications Parent, Inc. is an American telecommunications company. Known as Citizens Utilities Company until 2000, Citizens Communications Company until 2008, and Frontier Communications Corporation until 2020, as a communications provider with a fiber-optic network and cloud-based services, Frontier offers broadband internet, digital television, and computer technical support to residential and business customers in 25 states. In some areas it also offers home phone services.
Windstream Holdings, Inc., also doing business as Windstream Communications or Windstream, is a provider of voice and data network communications, and managed services, to businesses in the United States. The company also offers residential broadband, phone and digital streaming TV services to consumers within its coverage area. It is the ninth largest residential telephone provider in the country with service covering more than 8.1 million people in 21 states.
AT&T Inc., an abbreviation for its former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's third largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest wireless carrier in the United States behind Verizon and T-Mobile. As of 2023, AT&T was ranked 13th on the Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations, with revenues of $122.4 billion.
Pacnet was a global telecommunications service provider between 2008 and 2015. It was formed from the operational merger of Asia Netcom and Pacific Internet on 8 January 2008. It was owned by a private investor group comprising Ashmore Investment Management Limited, Spinnaker Capital Limited and Clearwater Capital Partners. Its acquisition by the Australian telecommunications company Telstra was announced at the end of 2014, and completed in April 2015.
The Bell System was a system of telecommunication companies, led by the Bell Telephone Company and later by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), that dominated the telephone services industry in North America for over 100 years from its creation in 1877 until its antitrust breakup in 1983. The system of companies was often colloquially called Ma Bell, as it held a vertical monopoly over telecommunication products and services in most areas of the United States and Canada. At the time of the breakup of the Bell System in the early 1980s, it had assets of $150 billion and employed over one million people.
Lumen Technologies, Inc. is an American telecommunications company headquartered in Monroe, Louisiana, which offers communications, network services, security, cloud solutions, voice and managed services through its fiber optic and copper networks, as well as its data centers and cloud computing services. Its has been on the S&P 600 index since being removed from the S&P 500 in March 2023.
AT&T Corporation, commonly referred to as AT&T, an abbreviation for its former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, was an American telecommunications company that provided voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to businesses, consumers, and government agencies.
Citizens Telecommunications Company of California Inc. is a telephone operating company of Frontier Communications based in Elk Grove, California. It was established in 1993 to acquire 5,000 access lines from GTE. In 1996, it acquired 20,000 access lines from Alltel in the Tuolumne and Golden State areas. In 2007, Citizens acquired Global Valley Networks, serving Capay Valley, Livingston, and Patterson. In 2013, Frontier Communications West Coast, a former GTE property serving Crescent City, was merged into Citizens.
Citizens Telecommunications Company of Nebraska provides local telephone service in Nebraska and some rural communities in northern Kansas.
Frontier Communications of Breezewood, LLC is a Frontier Communications operating company providing local telephone services to Breezewood, Pennsylvania. It also provides telephone service to Needmore, New Grenada, and Warfordsburg.
The history of AT&T dates back to the invention of the telephone. The Bell Telephone Company was established in 1877 by Alexander Graham Bell, who obtained the first US patent for the telephone, and his father-in-law, Gardiner Greene Hubbard. Bell and Hubbard also established American Telephone and Telegraph Company in 1885, which acquired the Bell Telephone Company and became the primary telephone company in the United States. This company maintained an effective monopoly on local telephone service in the United States until anti-trust regulators agreed to allow AT&T to retain Western Electric and enter general trades computer manufacture and sales in return for its offer to split the Bell System by divesting itself of ownership of the Bell Operating Companies in 1982.
