| Type | Subsidiary of Frontier |
|---|---|
| Industry | Telecommunications |
| Founded | 1917 |
| Headquarters | Charleston, WV, USA |
| Products | Local Telephone Service |
| Parent | AT&T (1917–1983) Bell Atlantic/Verizon (1984-2010) Frontier (2010–present) |
| Website | www.frontier.com/westvirginia |
Frontier West Virginia, Inc. is one of the original Bell Operating Companies and provides local telephone service in West Virginia.
Contents |
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 Southern Bell and C&P Telephone Co. of Maryland.
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]
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.
On July 1, 2010, Verizon sold New Communications ILEC Holdings to 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.
Frontier West Virginia is the only Bell Operating Company to have been completely divested by a Baby Bell to a non-Baby Bell. Some historic Bell local access lines have been sold to non-Baby Bells, such as sale of some Wisconsin Telephone lines to CenturyTel and Verizon New England lines in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine to FairPoint. U S WEST, one of the original Baby Bells, was acquired by non-Bell company Qwest in 2000. Its ILEC subsidiary, U S WEST Communications, originally Mountain Bell, was renamed Qwest Corporation. In 2011, Qwest was acquired by CenturyLink.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||