Re: GTE, Sprint, United, Centel, Contel, Nextel, etc.

Anthony -- That's a great history! Thanks for taking time to "shine a light" onto that part of our past!

Pat -- I think posting Anthony's article in the History section of the TELECOM Digest Archives would be a great idea!

Al

PAT -- please suppress my email address in the "from" line, and any > other place it might appear! > Al Gillis wrote: >> TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: >>> The (S)outhern (P)acific (R)ailroad (I)nternal (N)etwork >>> (T)elecommunications Department of that railroad -- or S.P.R.I.N.T. >>> for short -- did a major re-build of their trackside telephone >>> system in the late 1960's. They did such a good job of it, they had >>> a huge anount of left-over capacity and decided to lease it out to >>> other businesses and companies. That was the original Sprint, which >>> a few years later got into residential telecom service as well, and >>> has now -- 2005 -- gone through many changes in ownership and >>> management. About 1998 or so, Sprint bought the United Telephone >>> Company which serves a lot of northern Kansas among other >>> territories. PAT] >> BZZZZZT! Sorry, Pat, it was the other way around! >> United Telephone, based in the Kansas City, KS area (maybe Overland >> Park) bought SPRINT and then assumed the name, much like the recent >> changes at SBC/AT&T. >> United Telephone owned numerous local operating telephone companies >> around the US of A. In my area it was United Telephone of the >> Northwest. There was a United Telephone of Ohio, United Telephone of >> Florida, and others with the "United Telephone of..." name. There >> were still others as well, like Carolina Telephone, which operated in >> North and South Carolina. Possibly the largest city in SPRINT's >> stable in Las Vegas, NV. > Southern Pacific Railways began to offer "common carrier" telecom > services (SPRINT) during the 1970s era, paralleling what MCI had also > begun doing. At first, it was private line services, but over time, > combinations of private line with switched long haul services emerged, > and finally "fully switched" OCC (Other Common Carrier) services. > In the early 1980s, GTE bought out SPRINT from Southern Pacific > Railways. In the early 1980s, their 950-xxxx feature group 'B' dial-up > access number was 950-0777, the '777' for 'SPR', and their initial > post-divestiture feature group 'D' equal-access dial-around code was > 10-777. > Also happening during the early 1980s was that the independent telco > group owner United (which was one of about four or five or six of the > larger ones, the others being GTE, Contel, Centel, and also Alltel, > CenturyTel, PTI, etc) was developing their own 'OCC' long-distance > network called "US Telecom". Their access number was (is) 950-1033, > and their dial-around was 10-333 (now 101-0333). > In 1986, GTE and United decided to "join forces" and merge their OCC > long-distance networks. The new joint-venture would be called "US > Sprint", owned 50/50 by GTE and United. It would take some time for > the networks and billing departments of "US Sprint" to be properly > merged and operating "seamlessly". In the first couple of years of "US > Sprint", there were numerous billing errors! (Not that they didn't > have significant billing errors or broken promises throughout the > 1990s as well!). > After a year or two of the "US Sprint" joint-venture of GTE and > United, GTE suddenly announced that they "wanted out" of Sprint. It > was decided that over the next five or so years, that United would > slowly buy out GTE's ownership of "US Sprint". So, every year, if you > read the reports of who owned what, United would have larger shares of > Sprint, and GTE would have less. > By 1992 or so, GTE had completely exited Sprint, with United owning > all of Sprint. Also about the same time, GTE and Continental Telephone > (Contel) merged, with the GTE name surviving. There were long time > Contel service areas sold off, as well as some long-time GTE service > areas sold off too, to comply with antitrust laws. Alltel and Citizens > Tel bought up these one-time GTE and Contel service areas. There were > also a few Alltel areas that were sold to GTE at the same time, sort > of a "swap" of some GTE/Contel and Alltel areas! Also during the > 1992/93 time period, United also bought out Central Telephone > (Centel). Some legacy Centel areas included Tallahassee FL, large > areas of Virginia, parts of Illinois (including the one-time > Step-by-Step Chicago suburbs of Park Ridge and Des Plaines, later sold > in 1996 to Illinois Bell/Ameritech now SBC/AT&T), and the Las Vegas NV > Metro area. The combined United (which now owned 100% of Sprint) with > Centel, changed its name to Sprint around 1993. > The Sprint Local Telco areas of southern, central, and also scattered > in parts of northern Florida is mostly all legacy United. Tallahassee > FL and a few other areas of northwestern (panhandle) FL are legacy > Centel. > Sprint has also become involved in Cellular. > Sprint-Canada was a marketing name of Call-Net (Canada), a CLEC and > Canadian-based OCC (competitive Long Distance carrier). More recently, > Rogers (which at one time was in a venture with the old Unitel, also > once known as AT&T-Canada), has bought out Call-Net in Canada. I think > that the Rogers name will replace the Sprint-Canada and the Call-Net > names. > Earlier in 2005, Sprint bought out Nextel wireless. It's going to take > some time before the Nextel name is completely replaced with the > Sprint name, but Sprint did announce that it was retaining wireless > and long distance. The legacy incumbent local telco operation (once > known as United and Centel) is going to be spun-off to a new entity > altogather but the name of this entity is still TBA. > At the time that Sprint tookover Nextel, the red/white "diamond" logo > (in use since 1986 with the GTE and United joint-venture of US-Sprint) > was abandoned (although it will take time for embedded advertizing > signage, etc. to be completely replaced), the new Sprint-Nextel logo > being black, with black text, on a yellow background (similar to > pre-merger Nextel), the black logo itself now being something that > looks like bird-feathers fuffling or book-pages being rifled. > So, Sprint has had quite a colorful history dating back over 30 years. > And I'm defining Sprint by the OCC long distance aspect of the company > and name. Its one time owner United has a history that does indeed go > back over 100 years, as an independent local telephone company that > seems to have begun in the Kansas area in the 1890s or early 1900s. > And it was around 1992/93 (NOT 1998), that United changed its name to > Sprint, since United now owned all 100% of Sprint, in the transition > completely from GTE ownership over to United ownership. > - anthony bellanga
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think so also, and did that earlier on Saturday. His message (and another one about the 'ten-ten' access code numbers) is in the History section of the Telecom Archives as of now. Thanks for the mention however; I might have otherwise overlooked it. PAT]
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Al Gillis
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