Consolidated Communications of Northern New England Company, LLC is a

Bell Operating Company The Bell System was a system of telecommunication companies, led by the Bell Telephone Company and later by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), that dominated the telephone services industry in North America for over 100 years f ...

founded in 2006. It is a subsidiary of

Consolidated Communications Consolidated Communications Holdings, Inc. is an American broadband and business communications provider headquartered in Mattoon, Illinois. With 36,000 fiber route miles, it is a top ten fiber provider in the U.S., serving customers in 23 sta ...

and operates telephone lines in

Maine Maine ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the United States, and the northeasternmost state in the Contiguous United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Provinces and ...

and

New Hampshire New Hampshire ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

formerly served by

Verizon New England Verizon New England, Inc. is a Bell Operating Company that once covered most of New England but now only serves most of Massachusetts and all of Rhode Island. It was formerly the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company, more commonly known ...

History

Northern New England Telephone Operations, Inc. was created as a subsidiary of Verizon New England to operate exchanges that Verizon was preparing to sell to

FairPoint Communications FairPoint Communications, Inc. was an American operator of communication services. FairPoint's services include local and long-distance phone service, data, Internet, broadband, television, business communications solutions and fiber services. H ...

in Maine, New Hampshire, and

Vermont Vermont () is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, New York (state), New York to the west, and the Provinces and territories of Ca ...

Sale to FairPoint

In 2008, the company was spun off from Verizon and merged into FairPoint. One of the conditions of the sale, despite protest by FairPoint, was that NNETO would be regulated as a

. One implication of this condition required FairPoint to follow rules applying to the

Baby Bells A Regional Bell Operating Company (RBOC) was a corporate entity created as result of the antitrust lawsuit by the United States Department of Justice against the Western Electric Company and American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) in 194 ...

under the

Second Computer Inquiry The Second Computer Inquiry is the second proceeding in the FCC trilogy The Computer Inquiries, which created the FCC's policy of regulating the way in which telecommunications carriers' networks are opened up and made available to enhanced servic ...

decision in their newly acquired territories.FCC Grants Approval for Sale of Verizon Subsidiaries to Fairpoint
''Rural Spectrum Scanner''. Retrieved 2012-06-05. Following the sale, Northern New England Telephone Operations was converted to a

limited liability company A limited liability company (LLC) is the United States-specific form of a private limited company. It is a business structure that can combine the pass-through taxation of a partnership or sole proprietorship with the limited liability of ...

(LLC). The company's operations in Vermont were separated into

Telephone Operating Company of Vermont Consolidated Communications of Vermont Company, LLC is a telephone operating company owned by Consolidated Communications of Northern New England, a subsidiary of Consolidated Communications. The company was created following Verizon's 2008 sale ...

, which is wholly owned by NNETO. NNETO is separate from Northern Telephone Company of Maine, a FairPoint subsidiary which consists of some former

Contel ConTel Corporation (Continental Telephone) was the third largest independent phone company in the United States prior to it being acquired by GTE in 1991. History Contel was founded in 1961 by Charles Wohlstetter, Philip J. Lucier, and one oth ...

lines sold off by

GTE GTE Corporation, formerly General Telephone & Electronics Corporation (1955–1982), was the largest independent telephone company in the United States during the days of the Bell System. The company operated from 1926, with roots tracing furth ...

in 1994.

Sale to Consolidated Communications

Effective January 28, 2019, the company was renamed ''Consolidated Communications of Northern New England Company, LLC'' following the purchase of FairPoint by Consolidated Communications.

References

{{AT&T Spinoffs Verizon FairPoint Communications Bell System American companies established in 2007 Communications in Maine Communications in New Hampshire