Frontier West Virginia, Inc.
is one of the original
Bell Operating Companies
and provides
local telephone service
in the
U.S. state
of
West Virginia
.
History
[
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]
The Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company of West Virginia
, originally part of the
Bell System
, was founded on January 1, 1917. C&P of WV took over telephone operations in
West Virginia
being served by
Central District and Printing Telegraph Company
,
Southern Bell
, and
The Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company of Maryland
.
Dial service was first introduced by C&P of West Virginia in 1925 to the
Huntington
central office.
Bell Atlantic ownership
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]
In 1984, The Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company of West Virginia became a holding of
Bell Atlantic
, upon the divestiture of the
Bell System
by
AT&T
.
Charleston became the first city in the United States to have a choice of long-distance companies. By dialing "1" plus the area code and number, they could choose their long-distance carrier. Charleston was the nation's first test market for the service, allowing 34,000 customers to choose from one of eight long-distance companies serving the area.
C&P Telephone Co. of WV was the last
Bell Atlantic
company to provide
party line
telephone service. The last party line was converted to "private line" service on October 30, 1989.
In 1993, C&P Telephone of West Virginia took its last analog switch out of service, becoming the first
Bell Operating Company
to have 100% digital switching
[1]
Name changes
[
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]
In 1994,
Bell Atlantic
standardized all of its
Bell Operating Company
names, resulting in C&P Telephone of West Virginia being renamed
Bell Atlantic ? West Virginia, Inc.
In 2000, upon its purchase of
GTE
, Bell Atlantic became
Verizon Communications
, resulting in the new name
Verizon West Virginia, Inc.
Sale to Frontier
[
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]
On July 1, 2010, Verizon spun off
New Communications Holdings, Inc.
and its holding company
New Communications ILEC Holdings
to Verizon shareholders, which then merged with Frontier Communications. Included in the sale was Verizon West Virginia, among other select Verizon landline properties, which became
Frontier West Virginia, Inc.
[2]
The company operates separately from
Citizens Telecommunications Company of West Virginia
, the existing Frontier provider in the state.
Even though
Frontier Communications
is not a
Baby Bell
, the
FCC
determined that Frontier West Virginia is still bound by laws dating to its time as C&P Telephone of West Virginia; therefore, it is still responsible to uphold obligations expected of
Bell Operating Companies
outlined in the
Telecommunications Act of 1996
.
[3]
Unique
[
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]
Frontier West Virginia was the first Bell Operating Company to have been completely divested by a
Baby Bell
and sold to a non-Baby Bell. Some historically Bell local access lines have been sold to non-Baby Bells over the years by
BellSouth
,
US West
, and
Verizon
; however, the
Bell Operating Companies
from which those exchanges were split have been retained by the Baby Bells.
AT&T
announced on December 17, 2013 that it plans to sell
Southern New England Telephone
to
Frontier Communications
.
[4]
Although SNET is not legally defined as a
Bell Operating Company
since it was not majority-owned by the original
AT&T
, it is an original member of the Bell System and now shares a common affiliation with Frontier West Virginia (via ownership by Frontier) for the first time since 1983.
See also
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]
References
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Local telephone companies still extant
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Wholly owned
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Partially owned
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Other subsidiaries
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Manufacturing
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Research
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Long distance
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Wireless
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Regional Bell companies
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