Frontier Southwest Incorporated is a

Frontier Communications Frontier Communications Parent, Inc. (known as Citizens Utilities Company until May 2000 and Citizens Communications Company until July 31, 2008) is an American telecommunications company. The company previously served primarily rural areas and s ...

operating company in

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

. At its peak, Frontier Southwest served Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico.

History

Its original name upon founding was State Telephone Company of Texas. It later changed its name to Southwestern Associated Telephone Company, and General Telephone Company of the Southwest. In 1996, Contel of New Mexico and Contel of Texas were merged into GTE Southwest.

Fragmentation

In 1999, GTE announced that it was going to sell 1.3 million access lines. GTE agreed to sell 400,000 lines in New Mexico and lines in rural areas of Texas to a company called Valor Telecom (later absorbed into

Windstream Holdings Windstream Holdings, Inc., also doing business as Windstream Communications or Windstream, is a provider of voice and data network communications (broadband, VoIP, MPLS VPN, MPLS), and managed services (Virtual machine, virtual servers, managed fi ...

). In 2000, Bell Atlantic purchased GTE and renamed itself Verizon. Shortly thereafter, the pending sale of GTE Southwest's operations to Valor Telecom was completed. GTE Southwest's Arkansas operations in Arkansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma were sold to

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to become

CenturyTel of Northwest Arkansas CenturyTel of Northwest Arkansas, LLC is a telephone operating of CenturyLink providing local telephone services to northwest Arkansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma. The company was founded in 1999 when CenturyTel purchased access lines in Arkansas fr ...

(GTE's operations in Arkansas were completely sold off). GTE Southwest retained its name and operations in more populated areas of Texas. GTE Southwest was the only former GTE operating company that did not change its official legal name under Verizon ownership.

Sale to Frontier

On February 5, 2015, Verizon Communications announced a sale of its wired telecom operations in

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

, and

. GTE Southwest is included in the sale. The transaction is closed in the first half of 2016. Following the sale, GTE Southwest was renamed Frontier Southwest Incorporated and began doing business under the name Frontier Communications of Texas.

Sources

FCC History: GTE Southwest, Inc. dba Verizon Southwest

References

{{Authority control Frontier Communications Companies based in Irving, Texas Communications in Texas Economy of the Southwestern United States Telecommunications companies established in 1926 1926 establishments in Texas American companies established in 1926