The Southern New England Telephone Company (commonly referred to as SNET by its customers) is a local exchange carrier owned by AT&T Inc. It started operations on January 27, 1878 as the District Telephone Company of New Haven. It was the founder of the first telephone exchange, as well as the world's first telephone book. Since its inception, SNET has held a monopoly on most of the telephone services in the state of Connecticut; the only remaining exception is the Greenwich and Byram exchanges where Verizon New York provides telephone service.
SNET and Cincinnati Bell were the only two companies in the old Bell System that the old AT&T only had a minority stake in; by 1983, AT&T's stake was only 19.6 percent. Therefore, neither is considered a Bell Operating Company; rather, they are considered independents.
The Southern New England Telephone Company was purchased in 1998 by SBC Communications, which subsequently purchased the old AT&T, taking its name as the "new" AT&T. The Southern New England Telephone Company currently does business as AT&T Connecticut.
In 2006, AT&T merged the operations of Southern New England Telecommunications into AT&T Teleholdings. Southern New England Telephone then became a subsidiary of the company originally known as Ameritech within the AT&T corporate structure.
On June 1, 2007, the operations of Woodbury Telephone were merged into Southern New England Telephone. Woodbury Telephone is now defunct.
Famous quotes containing the words southern, england and/or telephone:
“As it grew darker, I was startled by the honking of geese flying low over the woods, like weary travellers getting in late from Southern lakes, and indulging at last in unrestrained complaint and mutual consolation. Standing at my door, I could hear the rush of their wings; when, driving toward my house, they suddenly spied my light, and with hushed clamor wheeled and settled in the pond. So I came in, and shut the door, and passed my first spring night in the woods.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“How does Nature deify us with a few and cheap elements! Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous. The dawn is my Assyria; the sun-set and moon-rise my Paphos, and unimaginable realms of faerie; broad noon shall be my England of the senses and the understanding; the night shall be my Germany of mystic philosophy and dreams.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Language is as real, as tangible, in our lives as streets, pipelines, telephone switchboards, microwaves, radioactivity, cloning laboratories, nuclear power stations.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)