I've definitely heard of Consolidated. Just like I had heard of Continental, United, Central Telephone, Century and many other smaller independent telcos. What we are starting to see is the sad cycle of life.

These independents came through humble beginnings and for the most part, remained small. The big boys that formed along the way, like AT&T/Bell System, General Telephone, etc. had the deep pockets to invest in the infrastructure of the major cities and did it well. They got to cherry pick their markets. As recently as a few years ago, you still saw that. Bell companies still commanded the larger metropolitan areas and GTE (General) picked up the surrounding suburbs (for example, Dallas, Seattle, Los Angeles, etc.)

Little guys like Consolidated got to pick from the remnants of what was left. This spawned hundreds of smaller independents, which over the years grew and merged, becoming bigger little guys. Continental Telephone System became Contel. Central became CenTel. United Telephone System and CenTel became Sprint. Alltel became Windstream, Century Telephone System became CenturyTel, and so on.

At the same time, the big boys got bigger and bigger. Bell Atlantic absorbed almost all Bell operations in the northeast, eventually becoming Verizon. Southwestern Bell (SBC) gobbled up just about all of the Bell territories in the south, southeast, midwest and west coast and eventually reverted back to their original parent company's name, at&t (yes, the lower-case is intentional, as the original company was AT&T). Those pesky trademark and marketing things, you know...

That wasn't enough for Verizon. They also bought GTE's territories as far west as Hawaii. A few years earlier, GTE had also bought Continental's (Contel's) territories nationwide as well, so overnight, Verizon became HUGE. So did at&t.

Over time, the big boys got tired of having to work for their money, so they started selling off parts of their operations to save money. This is comparable to your eyes being too big for your stomach when ordering food at a restaurant. The big boys were full and didn't want to eat anymore. They got a belly ache and had to expunge what they had eaten. Down the toilet their adventures started to go.

Verizon dumped northern New England to FairPoint, and eventually all of their GTE markets except for Virginia went to Frontier. at&t has started lobbying to allow themselves out of the requirement to provide ILEC services altogether in many markets.

Now, the little guys are growing up and taking these markets. For the first time in US Telecommunications history, CenturyTel, once the #5 independent recently took over the former Bell territory QWest (formerly US West). This huge takeover covered just about every state from Arizona to Idaho and east to North Dakota. That's a big chunk of Bell territory that became independent overnight.

What we are seeing is that the big boys are getting old and heading out to pasture. The little boys are stepping up and filling in for them. Just like with people, we're born drinking from a bottle and wearing diapers and we go out the same way. Only time will tell if the little guys can do the job.

Ed Vaughn, MBSWWYPBX