U.S.T.S. [telecom]

During the 1980s, the once "mighty" ITT began to dissolve into several non-telecom related entities that ITT had purchased when they decided to "diversify" in the 1960s/70s -- remember that ITT bought up Wonder Bread, Sheraton Hotels, etc. And their (old) name is currently still associated with technical schools/correspondence courses.

The various telecom entities of ITT -- manufacturing (all forms of telecom equipment manufacturing: customer premesis equipment, PBXes, and central office switches), local telcos in several Caribbean/Latin American countries, and such, were either sold to others (some of the companies which bought old ITT manufacturing entities themselves have since gone under or were themselves bought out by others), or went under.

The US competitive OCC (Other Common Carrier) IXC side of ITT/USTS, aka "ITT Longer Distance" (the marketing name), ultimately found its way into MCI (now VeriZon-Business/MCI), due to several mergers or takeovers, by way of ... "MetroMedia Long Distance" (which BTW was indeed at one time also associated with the 1960s/70s media company of the same name which owned radio and TV stations, as well as produced and syndicated some first-run syndicated TV game shows and "interview/personality" shows, much MetroMedia's Radio/TV/Broadcasting side evolved into what is now News Corporation/Murdoch/Fox. BTW, MetroMedia's Radio/TV side was originally known as the Metropolitan Broadcasting Company in the late 1950s, which took over most of the owned-operated TV stations of the defunct 1950s DuMont Television Network)... and later MetroMedia Long Distance was taken over by other companies in turn, such as LDDS and then and Worldcom, which either bought MCI, or maybe MCI later emerged out of Worldcom.

But much of what had been ITT/USTS as an "OCC/IXC" has evolved into VZ-Business/MCI through various mergers/takovers in the 1980s/90s, even if the original ITT/USTS network no longer exists.

Mark J. Cuccia markjcuccia at yahoo dot com Lafayette LA, formerly of New Orleans LA pre-Katrina

Metromedia founder and CEO John Kluge died just last year. He started Metromedia by acquiring the assets of the failing DuMont television network from its founder and owner, Allen B. DuMont. Metromedia was also in the cable TV business, if I recall correctly, but I can't find immediate corroboration.

-GAWollman