Verizon New England

Verizon New England, Inc.

Trade name	Verizon Massachusetts Verizon Rhode Island
Formerly	New England Telephone and Telegraph Company (1883–2000)
Company type	Private (Subsidiary of Verizon)
Industry	Telecommunications
Founded	1883
Headquarters	Boston, Massachusetts , USA
Area served	Massachusetts, Rhode Island
Products	POTS, DSL, FiOS (FTTP)
Parent	American Bell (1883–1899) AT&T (1899–1983) NYNEX (1984–1997) Bell Atlantic/Verizon (1997–present)
Website	Verizon Massachusetts Verizon Rhode Island

New England Telephone logo, 1984–1992

Verizon New England, Inc., which was formerly New England Telephone and Telegraph Company, more commonly known as New England Telephone, is a Bell Operating Company that serves most of Massachusetts and all of Rhode Island.

History

New England Telephone served most of the New England area of the United States, including Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont as a part of the original AT&T for seven decades. After the Bell System divestiture, it merged with New York Telephone to form NYNEX in 1984. After 1994, the name was no longer officially publicly used (although it was still used internally for portions of operations).

Its slogan and jingle was "We're the one for you, New England. New England Telephone." New England Telephone & Telegraph Company (N.E.T.&.T. Co.) was incorporated in the State of New York in 1883 by consolidation of The Bay State Telephone Co., The Boston & Northern Telephone Co., The Granite State Telephone Co., The National Bell Telephone Company of Maine, Suburban Telephone Co., Pioneer Telephone Co., Chesire Telephone Co., and The Telephone Despatch Company of Boston. It gained a contolling interest in smaller regional companies in New England including the Southern Massachusetts telephone Co. (1899) and Providence Telephone Co. (1912). The smaller companies were subsequently absorbed by N.E.T.&T.

The company has no connection to an earlier New England Telephone and Telegraph Company, a short-lived company that dissolved in 1879, although at least through 1965 the legal business name of New England Telephone was The New England Telephone and Telegraph Company. It also had no connection to Southern New England Telephone (SNET) which covered Connecticut and small parts of New York.

NYNEX was acquired by Bell Atlantic in 1997 and began doing business under that name; however, New England Telephone retained its original corporate name. In 2000, Bell Atlantic bought GTE and changed its own name to Verizon. New England Telephone was then renamed Verizon New England, Inc.

On April 1, 2008, Verizon's operations in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont were sold to FairPoint Communications as Northern New England Telephone Operations and Telephone Operating Company of Vermont.

Verizon New England is headquartered at 185 Franklin Street in the Post Office Square area of Boston's Financial District.

See also

• List of wired multiple-system broadband providers in Massachusetts (by municipality)

External links

• NYNEX logo timeline