The Southern New England Telephone Company (SNET), doing business as Frontier Communications of Connecticut, is a local exchange carrier owned by Frontier Communications.
 | |
| Frontier Communications of Connecticut | |
| Company type | Subsidiary |
| Industry | Telecommunications |
| Founded | 1878 |
| Headquarters | New Haven, Connecticut |
Key people | |
| Products | Local Telephone Service, Broadband |
Number of employees | 2700 |
| Parent | SNET (1986–1998) SBC/AT&T Inc. (1998–2014) Frontier (2014–present; Sale to Verizon pending) |
| Website | http://www.frontier.com/ |
History
editIt started operations on January 28, 1878, as the District Telephone Company of New Haven.[1] It was the founder of the first telephone exchange, as well as the world's first telephone book. Since its inception, SNET has held a monopoly on most of the telephone services in the state of Connecticut; the only remaining exceptions are the Greenwich and Byram exchanges where Verizon New York provides telephone service.[2]
SNET and Cincinnati Bell were the only two companies in the old Bell System in which the old AT&T only held a minority stake; by 1983, AT&T's stake was only 19.6 percent. Therefore, both were considered independents rather than Bell Operating Companies.
Sale to SBC
editSNET was purchased for $4.4 billion in 1998 by SBC Communications, which subsequently purchased the old AT&T, taking its name as the "new" AT&T. Under AT&T, SNET was known as AT&T Connecticut.
In 2006, AT&T merged the operations of SNET into AT&T Teleholdings, formerly Ameritech, making it a subsidiary of the latter.
On June 1, 2007, the operations of Woodbury Telephone were merged into SNET.
Sale to Frontier
editOn October 24, 2014, Frontier Communications completed its purchase of AT&T's Connecticut operations, including Southern New England Telephone and SNET America, for $2 billion.[3] The company began doing business as Frontier Communications of Connecticut. It is the second former unit of the Bell System to be acquired by Frontier, the first being Frontier West Virginia (originally C&P Telephone of West Virginia) which was purchased from Verizon in 2010.
Proposed Sale to Verizon
editOn September 5, 2024, Verizon announced that it will buy Frontier Communications for $20 billion. The acquisition, if approved, will see Verizon taking control of Frontier’s operations, including SNET. [4]
See also
editExternal links
edit- History – University of Connecticut Libraries
- "AT&T Press Release Headlines & News from AT&T". att.com. Retrieved 2017-08-09.
References
edit- ^ First Commercial Telephone Exchange – Today in History: January 28, Connecticut's Office of the State Historian
- ^ AT&T SNET Fairfield County White Pages, Customer Service Guide page 14, "Local Toll-free Calling Areas", August 2006 edition
- ^ Pilon, Matt (June 6, 2018). "Frontier's CT losses spike". HartfordBusiness.com. Retrieved January 23, 2019.
- ^ "Verizon to acquire Frontier". www.verizon.com. 2024-09-05. Retrieved 2024-09-05.