Talk:New England Telephone

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[edit] Name confusion

All these telecom mergers and subsidiaries make it very confusing to know how to organize articles. If the name is now Verizon New England, etc., then I suppose the article name should no longer be New England Telephone - but changing it would lead to a ton of redirects. On the other hand, is Verizon New England etc. enough of a separate entity to be worthy of an article? No, I imagine. The article-worthy entity is the old, independent New England Telephone. In which case the Verizon name should be secondary, e.g.:

New England Telephone was a Bell Operating Company that served the majority of New England until it became part of Verizon following various mergers in the 1980s and 1990s. Officially New England Telephone & Telegraph Co. ...

Or something like that. Any thoughts? - DavidWBrooks 12:54, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I liked the articles without the infoboxes - I only added infoboxes to the Verizon operating company articles after someone else added infoboxes to other Verizon operating company articles. I'd say if there were no infobox, there would be no problem at all...the official corporate name could just be mentioned at the end of the article as it used to be. KansasCity 13:03, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. We could make this an article about the old company, mentioning its new name so folks can go to Verizon if they want to see the present. But then the question is when do we end this article? In 1984, in the divestiture? Or 1994, when it just became NYNEX and "new england telephone" ceased to exist as a separate name? - DavidWBrooks 13:34, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

OK, I've given it a shot. Maybe we should get rid of the post-1984 logos down below; they add to the confusion. - DavidWBrooks 14:49, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] discussion

This is a comment on put on User: X570's talk page after he reverted the article:

That's Verizon New England not Verizon New England Telephone & Telegraph Co. as you have written. Where did you get that title? And why is the "NYNEX company" logo in the infobox? And it's not a Bell Operating Company, it's a subsidiary of one; actually, it's just an operating unit according to the link you sent, which is less than a subsidiary.

Even if all that is corrected, the article as you have changed it starts out talking about a different name than the title, which is highly confusing to the reader. It would be like having George Elliot start out Mary Ann Evans was a Victorian writer ... and then mention two sentences later that she used George Elliot as a pen name. At the very least it should say New England Telephone was the name of what is now Verizon New England ... or perhaps we should move the whole article to Verizon New England. - DavidWBrooks 21:39, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

I am in error in at least one point - it is a Bell Operating Company. I was mistaken thinking of an RBOC, the regional version. - DavidWBrooks 21:52, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Actually there are now 21 Bell Operating Companies as Southern Bell and South Central Bell has consolidated, and Mountain Bell, Northwestern Bell and Pacific Northwest Bell consolidated.X570 21:52, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I forgot to mention, the logo is the logo because it is the logo of New England Telephone itself. "A NYNEX Company" is there because it is where the logo was picked up from, http://www.bell.com/nynex_ad.htm.

The article should not be moved for a couple of reasons, and that is 1)VNET&T is the full proper name of the company, and 2)to remain consistant with the pages about the other Bell Operating Companies, as with the exceptions I mentioned before (the companies that consolidated: BellSouth Telecommunications, Qwest Corporation), and companies that were part of the original Bell Atlantic territory, that did officially drop their traditional names (New Jersey Bell became Bell Atlantic-NJ, then Verizon-NJ). All of the BOCs that are now part of the 'new' AT&T retain their traditional identities, though, for example the d/b/a of Pacific Bell is now AT&T California. - X570

If VNET&T is the full proper name of the company, why is the article titled "New England Telephone"? Shouldn't we turn the redirect around - have New England Telephone redirect to Verizon New England? No, that would be too much work - but I am going to put a "formerly' into the introductory sentence, as at New Jersey Bell to help the baffled newcomer. - DavidWBrooks 22:06, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Basically it is still subsidiary of a larger company, as it has been for over a century. As a company it deserves an infobox, and there is alot of data that can be seen at a glance in the infoboxes. The logo is the last logo used when the company was marketed to the public as NETel, and for the purposes of this article, should NOT be replaced with the generic Verizon logo. VNET&T is the official, internal name of the company. Even under AT&T prior to 1984 it was not marketed at New England Telephone & Telegraph, just New England Telephone, just the same as it is now marketed as Verizon New England. X570 22:08, 19 November 2006 (UTC)