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Phone Company
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A telephone company (or telco) provides telecommunications
services such as telephony and data communications. Most of the
largest telcos are or were at one time nationalized or
state-regulated monopolies. These monopolies are often referred
to, primarily in Europe, as PTTs.
Telcos are also known as common carriers and local exchange
carriers. With the advent of cellular telephony, telcos now
include wireless carriers.
Most telcos now also function as ISPs, and the distinction
between telco and ISP may disappear completely over time.
On the original Saturday Night Live, guest host comedian Lily
Tomlin satirized the attitude of the Bell System, which held
monopoly control of the telephone industry in America, with a
skit in which she played one of her trademark characters,
telephone operator Ernestine. In the skit, she disconnects the
phone service for a large area, and utters the now-famous quote:
"We don't care.
We don't have to.
We're the phone company."
Telcos include:
ALLTEL
Amena (now part of Orange)
AT&T
BC TEL (now part of Telus)
Belgacom
Bell Atlantic (Merged with GTE, now Verizon)
Bell Labs
Bell Canada (see also List of Canadian telephone companies)
BellSouth
BroadVoice
BT
Bulgarian Telecommunications Company (BTC)
Cable and Wireless
CenturyTel
China Telecom
China Netcom
China Unicom
China Mobile
Chunghwa Telecom
Cricket Communications
CityTel
Commonwealth Telephone
Deutsche Telekom
Du (United Arab Emirates)
Energis (Merged with Cable and Wireless)
Engin
Etisalat (United Arab Emirates)
France Télécom
GTE (Merged with Bell Atlantic, now Verizon)
Iceland Telecom
ITT Corporation
Jersey Telecom
Just Dial
KPN
Korea Telecom
Leap Wireless International Inc
Level 3
Magyar Telekom (formerly MATÁV)
Digi Telecommunications
MCI (MCI WorldCom) (Merged with Verizon)
NTT
NYNEX
Orange
OTE
Portugal Telecom
Qwest
SBC Communications (Merged with AT&T)
SFR
SingTel (Singapore)
Sprint Nextel Corporation
StarHub (Singapore)
SunRocket
Swisscom
Telecom Italia
Telecom New Zealand
Tele2
Telefónica
Teleglobe
Telemar
Telenor
Telkom (South Africa)
Telkom (Indonesia)
Telfort
Telia
Telstra
TELUS
Thus
T-Mobile
US West (now Qwest)
Verizon
Videotron
Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd
Vodafone
Vonage
WorldCom
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