29 Years of the Digest ... founded August 21, 1981 Add this Digest to your personal   or   The Telecom Digest for February 27, 2011 Volume 30 : Issue 50 : "text" Format Messages in this Issue:   Abuse Suspects, Your Calls Are Taped. Speak Up. (Monty Solomon) Re: BSTJ at Alcatel-Lucent website (Brent) Re: Metro hangs up on pay phones (Adam H. Kerman) VeriZon/GTE/Bell Atlantic/etc. (was VeriZon Screwed Me) (Mark J. Cuccia) ====== 29 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======

Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Bill Horne and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime.    - Geoffrey Welsh See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer, and other stuff of interest.

Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2011 18:11:22 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Abuse Suspects, Your Calls Are Taped. Speak Up. 
Message-ID: <p06240817c98f38e3ee8e@[10.0.1.2]>

Abuse Suspects, Your Calls Are Taped. Speak Up.

By WILLIAM GLABERSON
February 25, 2011

The men charged with beating, stabbing or burning their wives or 
girlfriends have plenty to say. Lately, their words have been used 
against them in New York courts as never before.

"I need you to prepare the kids to start lying," one man said to his 
girlfriend. He had been charged with burning her face with a hot iron 
as she knelt in view of their children.

Another cooed "baby" to the girlfriend he was charged with grabbing 
by the hair and scratching with keys. "Whatever you do," he directed, 
"do not speak to the D.A."

A third insisted to his brother that he was surprised at all the 
blood after he used a kitchen knife on the woman he had been with 
since they were teenagers. "I just stuck her like a little," he said.

Since last year, every prisoner telephone call at every New York City 
jail, except calls to doctors and lawyers, has been recorded. And 
prosecutors have been mining the trove in all kinds of cases - they 
asked for copies of the recordings 8,200 times last year, city 
officials said. But there is one area where the tapes are beginning 
to play a central role: cases of domestic violence.

The reason is simple. Once those accused in domestic violence crimes 
get on the jailhouse telephone, it turns out, many of them cannot 
seem to stop themselves from sweet-talking, confessing to, berating 
and threatening those on the other end of the line, more often than 
not the women they were charged with abusing.

The tapes overcome one of the biggest hurdles prosecutors face in 
such cases: that 75 percent of the time, the women who were 
victimized stop helping prosecutors, often after speaking to the men 
accused of abusing them.

...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/26/nyregion/26tapes.html



Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2011 02:58:59 -0800 (PST)
From: Brent <brentbischoff@gmail.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: BSTJ at Alcatel-Lucent website 
Message-ID: <ce74813d-9216-4980-b9cc-49768bc7cc12@u12g2000vbf.googlegroups.com>

Neal,

Thanks for the update. Would you kindly share the URL for BSTJs on
ALU? I didn't know they were there for public access.

Thanks,
Brent

On Feb 25, 10:14 am, Neal Eckhardt <neale...@hotmail.nospam.com>
wrote:
> For those of you that enjoyed poking through the old BSTJs but got
> frustrated by the slow... let me rephrase that... F'in slow response
> times, time to rejoice.
>
> The website was down for about a week, but it is now back up with a
> new look, and instantaneous downloads of documents. No more loading of
> documents overnight....
>
> Neal
>
> --
> Neal
>
> Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.

***** Moderator's Note *****

A. Because it disrupts the normal top-to-bottom flow of a written communication. 
Q. Why is top-posting bad?

Bill Horne
Moderator



Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2011 18:19:33 +0000 (UTC)
From: "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Metro hangs up on pay phones 
Message-ID: <ikbg7k$b0n$1@news.albasani.net>

David Lesher <wb8foz@panix.com> wrote:

>The 10 year contract between WMATA ("Metro") and Verizon [Let's
>see, what WAS it named when they signed it?] expires in March;
>and look like Verizontal will not renew.

>Metro stations have been one of the last places in the DC area
>to actually find a pay phone, as every station entrance has them
>inside and outside the faregates.

>For some unspecified period, WMATA will pay for one TTY equipped
>phone at each entrance.

>http://www.wmata.com/about_metro/news/PressReleaseDetail.cfm?ReleaseID=4798

At North Western Station in Chicago (Ogilvie Passenger Terminal officially,
but no passenger has ever called it that), the owners of the office building
that replaced the head house rearranged the first two floors for more
retail space. There were two stub-end hallways at either end of the area
in front of the doors to the train gates on the second floor that had
a dozen pay phones on each side. They weren't used as often as they might
have been as they were inconveniently located and signage was poor.

I didn't actually notice that they'd been yanked out, but one of the
hallways adjacent to the ticket office is leased to a barber shop
with three chairs, and the one at the opposite end is just closed off.
Not sure how they'll get a tenant in there.

This is all on the second floor. On the first floor, there had been a
few phones under one of the escalators where there was space but you
also had to hunt for. I really need to make a thorough check to see if
any payphones remain at all.



Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2011 09:13:59 -0800 (PST)
From: "Mark J. Cuccia" <markjcuccia@yahoo.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: VeriZon/GTE/Bell Atlantic/etc. (was VeriZon Screwed Me) 
Message-ID: <10964.22436.qm@web31103.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

On Thursday 24-February-2011, David Kaye <sfdavidkaye2@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Just a reminder that this is Verizon (the former GTE et al) and not
> Verizon Wireless, a different (and more competent) company.

Then Bill Horne (Telecom Digest Moderator) added:

> ***** Moderator's Note *****
> 
> Verizon is the former NYNEX/Bell Titanic [sic] merger, and it picked
> up GTE etc. after that.

Not exactly. Bell Atlantic took over NYNEX two or three years BEFORE
the merger with GTE, the LATTER (the takeover of GTE) is really what
formed VeriZon (landline).

The Bell Atlantic/NYNEX merger was announced on Tuesday 22-April-1996,
and went through more than a year of the regulatory/stockholder/etc.
approval process, the effective date of the merger was on effective
on Tuesday 01-September-1997, when the Bell Atlantic name began
replacing the NYNEX name in the states of legacy New York Tel (NY,
Greenwich/Byram CT) and New England Tel & Tel (ME/NH/VT, MA/RI).

Bell Atlantic (which now included former NYNEX) and GTE (what still
remained of it, and which since 1990/91 included what remained of the
former Contel) announced on Monday 27-July-1998 their intent to merge.
The regulatory/stockholder/etc. approval process took about two years
for this merger.

Prior to the effective date of the BA/GTE merger for the landline
sides, the WIRELESS sides merged, which also included some other
wireless licenses in the US as well as Vodafone in the UK and Europe.
I don't know all of the specifics of the ownership and such of the
wireless side though, but I do know that Vodafone is (or was) involved
in VeriZon. This was effective in March/April 2000 when the VeriZon
name was formally announced for the first time.

Also in Spring 2000, Telus in Canada announced a re-organization of
their landline structure, since legacy GTE had owned the telco
landline operations in some or most of two provinces for decades.

GTE (through its Anglo-Canadian subsidiary) had owned just over 50%
of British Columbia Telephone Company since the 1950s, which has been
the incumbent landline telco for MOST of the Province of British
Columbia.

In 1967, GTE (again through its subsidiary Anglo-Canadian) purchased
"QuebecTel" (NOT to be confused with "Telebec", another telco in
Quebec), which was a growing consolidation of a number of local
independent telcos in eastern and southeastern Quebec. Again,
GTE/Anglo-Canadian owned just over 50% of QuebecTel.

Bell Canada is NOT the "only" telco in Quebec and Ontario though;
there always have been, and still are, several small towns scattered
across Ontario and Quebec served by their own local telcos). And even
in other provinces, there have been small and mid-size telcos which
are considered "independent", since they are not owned by one of the
"dominant provincial telcos". The "dominant provincial telcos" are
not considered "independents" by the Canadian telco industry, even
though they are not necessarily owned by Bell Canada. The definition
of "independent" in Canada is not "exactly" the same as here in the US.

Circa 1998, (partially) GTE-held BC-Tel and "Telus", which was the
new name for the former AGT (Alberta Government Tel), which used to
be owned by the Alberta provincial government prior to the 1990s-era,
merged. The merged entity covering Alberta and most of British
Columbia would carry the "Telus" name, the "BC-Tel" name was slowly
eliminated over the next two years. GTE would own something like
20% to 30% of the new (merged AB/BC) Telus, although its voting stock
was a bit lower than the actual amount owned. GTE/Anglo-Canadian still
owned what it had of QuebecTel though.

But in Spring 2000, at the time that the new VeriZon name was first
announced for the merged wireless sides of Bell Atlantic, GTE, and
others, Telus in Canada, and GTE/Anglo-Canadian, re-organized their
association. GTE-soon-to-be-part-of-the-new-VeriZon would transfer
most of their Anglo-Canadian holdings in QuebecTel to Canadian-based
Telus, and the Quebec telco would be renamed Telus-Quebec, and adopt
the Telus logo as well. (This really was one way that Telus, which was
originally the old AGT, now began expanding into a national Canadian
telecom entity). Thus ALL of the old GTE telco operations in Canada
were now going to all be named "Telus", and be mostly owned by Telus.
(In late 2004, Telus purchased all of VeriZon/legacy-GTE's Canadian
holdings, thus ending legacy GTE telco operations in most of BC and
part of Quebec).

The landline sides of Bell Atlantic (including old NYNEX) and GTE
(including what remained of Contel) became effective on Monday
03-July-2000, and it was already publicly known since Spring 2000
(when the wireless mergers were effective and the VeriZon name was
publicly announced to apply to that wireless side), that the VeriZon
name would also now apply to the landline side, and begin to replace
the Bell Atlantic and GTE names.

NOTE that I mention "what remained of" for Contel and even GTE.
Both companies did grow leading up to the 1970s, in the number of
other small and mid-size independent telcos that they had been buying
out for several decades. But starting in the 1970s/80s-era, both GTE
and Contel began selling off individual exchanges here-and-there, as
well as selling off entire states where they previously operated,
after having acquired smaller telcos in those states.

Circa 1970, GT&E had operations in 35 states, as well as in Canada
(as mentioned above), and the Dominican Republic. GT&E also once owned
PLDT, Philippine Long Distance Telephone, the dominant local and toll
provider in most of the Philippines (there were some other smaller
"independent" telcos as well), but by 1967, Marcos and his family and
friends "nationalized" PLDT. Hawaii was also one of those 35 states
where GTE had been located. ALL of Hawaii was owned by GTE. GTE also
owned SOME exchanges in Alaska as well.

Circa 1970, Contel had expanded its size, owning exchanges in as many
as 42 states. This included a number of exchanges scattered about
Alaska as well. Contel also owned some exchanges in Canada -- in
Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick. And Contel partially owned (with
the local island government, or with Cable & Wireless, telcos in
several "British" Caribbean islands.

During the 1970s/80s-era, GTE pulled out of five states where they
previously owned exchanges, and Contel pulled out of twelve states.
Contel sold off their Alaskan exchanges to PTI. Bell Canada took over
Contel's Ontario exchanges. Several "independent" telcos in Quebec
took over Contel's Quebec exchanges. Bell-held New Brunswick Telephone
took over one-time Contel in St.Clair NB. Contel's "British" Caribbean
telcos were usually "nationalized" by the new emerging hard-left
Marxist regimes in the Caribbean-area at the time -- this happened to
Contel in Grenada, Trinidad, Guyana (on the north coast of S.America
but is more associated with the "British" Caribbean), and even their
operations in Jamaica. I think that Contel's operations in Barbados
and in parts of the Bahamas were retained the longest, into the 1980s,
when Contel chose to leave the region on their own.

In the US mainland, GTE and Contel sold off some states to local small
local independent telcos, as well as to the growing CenturyTel, or
even swapped areas with each other.

GTE (what remained of it) bought what remained of Contel in 1990/91,
and began renaming the former Contel exchanges as GTE exchanges. But
also from 1992-95, GTE sold off entire states of Contel and even long
time GTE, some to other smaller independents, and some to Citizens Tel
and Alltel. ALL of GTE and former Contel in West Virginia was sold off
in 1992 to Citizens Tel (which in 1991 would buy out Frontier/
Rochester Tel/etc. from Bermuda-based Global Crossing, and then change
its name to Frontier over the next few years. In 1995, GTE sold off
all former Contel in upper New England to a consortium of local
telcos, most of which would later consolidate in 2000 to form the new
"FairPoint".

And even after GTE/Contel was taken over by Bell Atlantic/NYNEX to
form VeriZon, in 2000, many former GTE or Contel area were sold by
VeriZon to others. Some of these sales of old GTE/Contel were actually
negotiated by GTE in the late 1990s, prior to VeriZon though. Old GTE
in Alaska was sold off by VeriZon in 2000, to a consortium of local
independent telcos in Alaska, which divided those exchanges amongst
themselves. Old GTE (including Contel in many cases) in Kentucky,
Missouri, Arkansas, Alabama, Minnesota, etc. was sold off by VeriZon
in 2000 and 2002 to CenturyTel, Citizens-soon-Frontier, and Alltel.
GTE/Contel in Iowa was sold off by VeriZon to the new Iowa Telecom,
which was formed by Iowa Network Services to buy out Iowa's legacy
GTE/Contel. (Iowa Telecom is now part of "Windstream", the 2006 merged
entity of Alltel and Valor). GTE in Oklahoma, SOME GTE/Contel in parts
of Texas, and what remained of GTE/Contel in New Mexico was sold off
by VeriZon in 2000 to the newly formed "Valor", which has since merged
in 2006 with Alltel's landline to form Windstream).

VeriZon sold off legacy GTE/Hawaii to the Carlyle Group in 2005, the
new name for the telco is Hawaiian Telcom. Also in 2005, VZ sold off
legacy GTE in the Mariana Islands in the Pacific (Saipan/Tinian/Rota)
to the Philippine-based Pacific Telecom Inc (NOT to be confused with
the PTI in the western/mid-west US including Alaska, which was taken
over by CenturyTel in 2007/08).

In 2006, VeriZon announced that they were pulling out of the
Caribbean area, where legacy GTE had operations. In 1995, GTE bought
into the PR-Government-partially-held Puerto Rico Tel Co, but GTE
still didn't own PRTC completely. GTE (through Anglo-Canadian) owned
the majority of Codetel in the Dominican Republic, for decades. And
in the early 1990s, GTE bought a small percentage of "CANTV" in
Venezuela. These all became part of VeriZon in 2000 when BA/NYNEX
took over legacy GTE/Contel. VeriZon was going to sell-off their
Caribbean holdings to American Movil, which was mostly a group which
had large holdings in TelMex. VZ was successful in Puerto Rico and
the Dominican Republic in selling off their holdings, but they mostly
lost out w/r/t CANTV in Venezuela, since hard-left Marxist Hug Chavez
nationalized the VZ/GTE holdings in the meantime.

In the Dominican Republic, the Codetel name was replaced with
VeriZon-Dominicana in 2000, but with VZ pulling out in the 2006-08
period, the Codetel name has returned.

In 2004, when VeriZon announced that they were going to sell off
legacy GTE-Hawaiian Telephone Company, they also announced that they
wanted to exit New York State. GTE had sold their NY State exchanges
to Contel in the 1970s/80s-era, but re-acquired those exchanges in
1991 when GTE bought out Contel, and GTE also acquired the long-time
Contel exchanges in NY State as well. But by the mid-1990s, GTE sold
off ALL of this to Citizens-Tel (now Frontier). VeriZon now wanted to
sell off New York Tel, a legacy BOC! VZ would still retain the New
York City Metro LATA #132, which includes Long Island (except Fishers
Island), and also includes the lower Hudson River Valley counties of
Westchester, Rockland, Putnam, and PART of Orange, and also the
Connecticut ratecenters of Byram/Greenwich which are VZ/NYTel and
not SNET. But everything else in NY State outside of the NYC Metro
LATA #132 would be sold off. To date, NOTHING FURTHER has happened
regarding this proposed sell-off.

But in 2006, VeriZon announced that they wanted to sell off the BOC
operations (New England Tel & Tel) in the three upper New England of
ME/NH/VT, And VeriZon wanted to sell off GTE (and what still remained
of legacy Contel) in the five Midwest states, OH/MI/IN/IL/WI. GTE was
in all five states (some areas were sold off over the years). Legacy
Contel was never in Ohio (there is an Ohio town named "Continental OH"
which has had its own local telco of the same name, but that was NEVER
part of Contel; today this Ohio telco is part of TDS), and Contel had
sold off their Michigan and Wisconsin exchanges before being bought by
GTE in 1990/91. When GTE was selling off GTE and Contel in the early
1990s after having just acquired Contel, they sold Georgia GTE and
Contel to Alltel, and ACQUIRED Alltel in MI/IN/IL in return -- these
had been renamed GTE-then-VeriZon, and these would be part of any
VZ sale of exchanges in that part of the Midwest.

In January 2007, VeriZon announced that the BOC states of ME/NH/VT of
legacy New England Tel & Tel would be sold to FairPoint, while the
legacy NET&T states of MA/RI would still be retained by VeriZon. This
was completed in April 2008, and it also required some rewiring of
customer loops/switches and re-homing of switches/tandems w/r/t MA/NH
and MA/VT. Also remember that in 1995 GTE sold off all 1990/91
acquired legacy Contel in these same three states of ME/NH/VT. Thus
FairPoint has MOST of the exchanges in all three states, both old
Contel and legacy BOC NET&T, although there are a few other small
local independent telcos in all three states.

Then in May 2009, VeriZon announced that they were going to sell off
ALL exchanges in numerous states, and SOME exchanges in California.
This included ALL of legacy BOC C&P-West Virginia (which includes the
Crows-Hematite VA ratecenter which gets dialtone from White Sulphur
Sprints WV). Frontier (formerly Citizens, as well as Rochester Tel/
etc) would acquire all of this.

Remember that Citizens bought out all of GTE/Contel in West Virginia
circa 1992 when GTE sold all of that. Citizens (pre-Frontier) also
acquired Alltel in West Virginia. Thus, with a few exceptions of a
handful of small local independent telcos in WV, Frontier now has
virtually ALL exchanges in West Virginia, which includes legacy Bell
(C&P-WV), legacy GTE/Contel, and old Alltel.

NOTE though, that some ratecenters' customer-loops in WV used to get
dialtone from VZ/BA/C&P-MD based c.o.switches, and vice-versa, some
customer-loops in MD used to get dialtone from once-VZ/BA/C&P-WV based
c.o.switches being sold to Frontier/Citizens. These customers in each
state have been re-wired to c.o.switches in their own states, from
incumbent telcos for their own post-2010 states. This is similar to
what happened in 2008 with VZ selling NET&T in ME/NH/VT to FairPoint
with cross-border dialtone needing to be re-aligned with MA/NH and
MA/VT. In both cases, local/EAS is retained. In WV/MD, both the
retained VZ/BA/C&P-MD and the now-Frontier/Citizens (formerly-
VZ/BA/C&P-WV) areas are in the same Hagerstown MD LATA and all home
on the same Cumberland MD tandem.

The 2009 sale which was effective 01-July-2010 was MOSTLY of remaining
legacy GTE/Contel that VeriZon was now selling to Frontier. Only some
legacy GTE/Contel exchanges in California bordering OR/NV/AZ were sold
to Frontier, VeriZon retaining the rest of (what remained of) legacy
GTE/Contel in CA. (In the mid-1990s, GTE did sell off a FEW CA-based
exchanges to Citizens-pre-Frontier, though).

VeriZon also sold-off to Frontier in 2009/10 legacy GTE including any
legacy Contel in other states, such as those five Midwest states
(OH/MI/IN/IL/WI) that it had referenced in 2006, as well as legacy
GTE (including any legacy Contel) in NC/SC (Contel-then-GTE-now-VZ
Knotts Island NC is retained by VeriZon though), WA, OR, ID, NV, AZ.
Some of these states that VeriZon was selling off to Frontier had only
legacy "longtime" GTE, some states had old GTE and old Contel that GTE
acquired in 1990/91, and some states had only old Contel that GTE
acquired in 1990/91. Also Michigan had both old GTE and GTE-acquired
Alltel, while both Illinois and Indiana had old GTE as well as
GTE-acquired Alltel AND GTE-acquired Contel, all of this sold to
Frontier/Citizens in 2009/10.

With this huge 2009/10 sale by VeriZon to Frontier/Citizens last year,
VeriZon still retains the following legacy telcos and states:

- Bell Atlantic including NYNEX, although NYNEX/NET&T in ME/NH/VT were
sold to FairPoint in 2007/08 (NYNEX/NET&T MA/RI is still retained);
(BA/C&P-WV including Crows-Hematite VA was sold to Frontier/Citizens)

- old GTE including any Contel in...

Pennsylvania and Virginia, both being legacy "Bell Atlantic states",
and VZ has integrated day-to-day operations for these legacy GTE and
Contel exchanges into that of neighboring legacy Bell Atlantic
operations. This also includes the legacy Contel Knotts Island NC
exchange retained by VeriZon after 2009/10, even though everything
else GTE/Contel in NC was sold to Frontier/Citizens. Knotts Island NC
does have its own c.o.switch, a remote hosted from Virginia, and is
part of the Norfolk VA LATA. There is local/EAS with Norfolk VA as
well, which has both legacy BOC C&P-VA and other legacy Contel in the
vicinity on the Virginia side;

Florida -- all of the Tampa Bay area which has been GTE for decades;
(There USED to be Contel in the northern parts of Florida until the
mid/late 1980s, most of this sold to Centel-later-Sprint/Centel-now-
CenturyLink, one Contel exchange sold in the mid-1970s to what is now
Frontier-legacy-Rochester-Tel, and another Contel exchange sold in the
1980s to Alltel-now-Windstream);

Texas -- remaining GTE-including-Contel -- there were a number of
GTE including old Contel exchanges sold by VeriZon in 2000 to the new
"Valor" telco, Valor now part of Windstream since 2006, but VeriZon
did retain most of GTE/Contel in Texas in 2000, this also being
retained with 2009/10;

California -- most GTE/Contel retained by VZ in 2009/10, although a
few CA exchanges bordering OR (GTE-West Coast Tel), NV (Contel), AZ
(Contel) were sold to Frontier/Citizens in 2009/10; And a few old CA
GTE/Contel exchanges were sold by GTE to Citizens-pre-Frontier in 1995.

I wonder what else is going to be sold by VeriZon or anyone else in
the next several years? CenturyLink has grown since CenturyTel's
acquisition in 2008/09 of Embarq-once-Sprint-once-United-also-Centel,
and now CenturyLink wants to takeover Qwest/US-West/legacy Mountain
Bell, Northwestern Bell, Pacific Northwest Bell. Windstream has been
growing some in the past few years, and Frontier has acquired other
independent telcos as well.

Anyhow, Bell Atlantic bought out NYNEX, announced in 1996, officially
effective in September 1997. The Bell Atlantic name replaced the NYNEX
name at this time. The VeriZon name wasn't implemented at this time,
and probably hadn't even been thought of by anyone in BA.

It was in 1998 when Bell Atlantic (including old NYNEX) and (what
remained of) GTE (including what remained of Contel) announced their
merger, which also would include several other wireless entities
also involved including Vodafone. The wireless entities' merger or
joint-venture was effective with Spring 2000 as the new entity
"VeriZon Wireless".

But it wasn't until Summer 2000 when the landline BA/NYNEX merger with
GTE/Contel took effect, also now adopting the VeriZon name. However,
there were some reorganizations of GTE's Canadian landline telcos and
Telus with Spring 2000, VZ/GTE exiting Canada in 2004. And since 2000
VZ has sold off several other GTE and/or Contel operations in the US
and elsewhere, the most recent being the 2009/10 sale to Frontier,
although GTE sold off GTE and Contel in the early-to-mid-1990s shortly
after buying out Contel in 1990/91, and even in the 1970s/80s both
GTE and Contel were selling off some territory in the US and elsewhere.

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




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