Hawaiian Telcom, Inc., is the incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) or dominant local

telephone company A telephone company, also known as a telco, telephone service provider, or telecommunications operator, is a kind of communications service provider (CSP), more precisely a telecommunications service provider (TSP), that provides telecommunicat ...

, serving the state of

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

. In 2005, Hawaiian Telcom Holdco, Inc., was formed by

The Carlyle Group The Carlyle Group is a multinational private equity, alternative asset management and financial services corporation based in the United States with $376 billion of assets under management. It specializes in private equity, real assets, and pri ...

, following its purchase of the Hawaiian Telecom Inc. assets of

Verizon Communications Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas i ...

. On July 2, 2018,

Cincinnati Bell Cincinnati Bell, doing business as Altafiber (typeset as altafiber), is a regional telecommunications service provider based in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. It provides landline telephone, fiber-optic Internet, and IPTV services through its ...

purchased Hawaiian Telcom Holdco, Inc. for $650 Million, Hawaiian Telcom provides a wide range of consumer, business, wholesale communications and technology services. Service offerings include local phone, long-distance,

Internet services An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise private ...

(

DSL Digital subscriber line (DSL; originally digital subscriber loop) is a family of technologies that are used to transmit digital data over telephone lines. In telecommunications marketing, the term DSL is widely understood to mean asymmetric dig ...

and

fiber optic An optical fiber, or optical fibre in Commonwealth English, is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass (silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair. Optical fibers are used most often as a means to ...

), and television service; along with wireless service such as a

mobile virtual network operator A mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) is a wireless communications services provider that does not own the wireless network infrastructure over which it provides services to its customers. An MVNO enters into a business agreement with a mobil ...

using

leased A lease is a contractual arrangement calling for the user (referred to as the ''lessee'') to pay the owner (referred to as the ''lessor'') for the use of an asset. Property, buildings and vehicles are common assets that are leased. Industrial ...

capacity provided by Sprint and

Verizon Wireless Verizon is an American wireless network operator that previously operated as a separate division of Verizon Communications under the name Verizon Wireless. In a 2019 reorganization, Verizon moved the wireless products and services into the divi ...

CDMA Code-division multiple access (CDMA) is a channel access method used by various radio communication technologies. CDMA is an example of multiple access, where several transmitters can send information simultaneously over a single communication ...

networks on the consumer side. Hawaii operations of Verizon Wireless were not included in the 2004 sale to The Carlyle Group, and Verizon Wireless continues to operate in Hawaii as before the

divestiture In finance and economics, divestment or divestiture is the reduction of some kind of asset for financial, ethical, or political objectives or sale of an existing business by a firm. A divestment is the opposite of an investment. Divestiture is a ...

. Among the company's business offerings are a full range of

Internet Protocol The Internet Protocol (IP) is the network layer communications protocol in the Internet protocol suite for relaying datagrams across network boundaries. Its routing function enables internetworking, and essentially establishes the Internet. IP h ...

services (IP), including Ethernet, high-bandwidth data services, managed services and

cloud-based Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage (cloud storage) and computing power, without direct active management by the user. Large clouds often have functions distributed over multip ...

services.

History

Hawaiian Telcom was founded in 1883 as the Mutual Telephone Company, chartered under the

Kingdom of Hawaii The Hawaiian Kingdom, or Kingdom of Hawaiʻi ( Hawaiian: ''Ko Hawaiʻi Pae ʻĀina''), was a sovereign state located in the Hawaiian Islands. The country was formed in 1795, when the warrior chief Kamehameha the Great, of the independent island ...

. An original owner was

Archibald Scott Cleghorn Archibald Scott Cleghorn (November 15, 1835 – November 1, 1910) was a Scottish businessman who married into the royal family of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Biography He was born on November 15, 1835, in Edinburgh, Scotland, to Thomas Cleghorn an ...

, father of

Princess Ka'iulani Princess is a regal rank and the feminine equivalent of prince (from Latin ''princeps'', meaning principal citizen). Most often, the term has been used for the consort of a prince, or for the daughter of a king or prince. Princess as a subst ...

. It was the second telephone company chartered in Hawaii, after the Hawaiian Bell Telephone Company in 1880. Mutual took over Hawaiian Bell in 1894. With the acquisition of the phone service of the

Hawaiian Pineapple Company Dole plc (previously named Dole Food Company, Standard Fruit Company) is an Irish agricultural multinational corporation headquartered in Dublin, Ireland. The company is among the world's largest producers of fruit and vegetables, operating with ...

on the island of

Lanai Lanai ( haw, Lānai, , , also ,) is the sixth-largest of the Hawaiian Islands and the smallest publicly accessible inhabited island in the chain. It is colloquially known as the Pineapple Island because of its past as an island-wide pineapple pl ...

, Mutual owned the phone system of the Hawaiian islands. Mutual changed its name to Hawaiian Telephone Company in 1954, with J Ballard Atherton as company president. In 1967

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

-based GTE Corp. acquired Hawaiian Telephone and renamed it GTE Hawaiian Tel. After the 2000 merger of GTE with

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

-based

Bell Atlantic Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas in ...

, forming

, GTE Hawaiian Tel became Verizon Hawaii. Original company stock certificate

Recent ownership

In 2004 Verizon Communications finalized a deal to sell Verizon Hawaii to the

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

-based investment firm The Carlyle Group. At the time, Carlyle's purchase of Verizon Hawaii was quite controversial with the public and

competitive local exchange carrier A competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC), in the United States and Canada, is a telecommunications provider company (sometimes called a " carrier") competing with other, already established carriers, generally the incumbent local exchange carrie ...

Time Warner Telecom TW Telecom (styled tw telecom), was a business telecommunications company headquartered in Littleton, Colorado, United States. The company provided business voice services, transport, Internet, data services and wholesale fiber capacity. It w ...

and

Pacific LightNet Pacific LightNet is a locally owned, facilities-based CLEC, providing both voice and data services to its customers in Hawaii. At the core of its products and services is a 10,000 fiber mile submarine and terrestrial fiber optic network connectin ...

, who had doubts about the Carlyle's lack of experience operating

telecommunication Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...

businesses, and their intentions as to raising rates, upgrading the network with

optical fiber An optical fiber, or optical fibre in Commonwealth English, is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass (silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair. Optical fibers are used most often as a means to ...

as former-parent Verizon was doing on the mainland, and possible resale of the business in just a few years, all seen as being detrimental to the

public interest The public interest is "the welfare or well-being of the general public" and society. Overview Economist Lok Sang Ho in his ''Public Policy and the Public Interest'' argues that the public interest must be assessed impartially and, therefore ...

. Upon disconnecting from

Verizon Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas in ...

's back-office systems in April 2005, the company experienced difficulties transitioning to its own systems. Issues ranged from extremely long hold times to speak to representatives, to duplicate and delayed bills. In February 2007, the company announced that it had reached a settlement with its original systems consultant,

BearingPoint BearingPoint (parent company: BearingPoint Europe Holdings B.V.) is an independent multinational management and technology consulting firm with 41 offices across 23 countries and around 4,300 employees. In 2021, the firm delivered 1,298 projects ...

, and had hired a new contractor,

Accenture Accenture plc is an Irish-American professional services company based in Dublin, specializing in information technology (IT) services and consulting. A ''Fortune'' Global 500 company, it reported revenues of $61.6 billion in 2022. Accentur ...

, to complete the transition to the new systems. Hawaiian Telcom announced on February 4, 2008, that it was replacing CEO Michael Ruley with turnaround expert Stephen F. Cooper, chairman of Kroll Zolfo Cooper. Cooper's previous management engagements include

Enron Enron Corporation was an American energy, commodities, and services company based in Houston, Texas. It was founded by Kenneth Lay in 1985 as a merger between Lay's Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth, both relatively small regional companies. ...

and

Krispy Kreme Krispy Kreme, Inc. (previously Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Inc.) is an American multinational doughnut company and coffeehouse chain. Krispy Kreme was founded by Vernon Rudolph (1915–1973), who bought a yeast-raised recipe from a New Orleans ch ...

. On May 8, 2008, the company named Eric Yeaman as its new CEO, succeeding interim CEO Cooper. Yeaman previously served as chief operating officer of

Hawaiian Electric Company Hawaiian Electric Industries, Inc. (HEI; ) is the largest supplier of electricity in the state of Hawaii, supplying power to 95% of Hawaii's population through its electric utilities: Hawaiian Electric Company, Inc., Hawai'i Electric Light Comp ...

, the electric utility serving the island of Oahu. The company also announced that Walter Dods, former president of

First Hawaiian Bank First Hawaiian, Inc. is a bank holding company headquartered in Honolulu, Honolulu, Hawaii. Its principal subsidiary, First Hawaiian Bank, founded in 1858, is Hawaii’s oldest and largest financial institution headquartered in Honolulu, Hawaii, a ...

and one of several local investors in Hawaiian Telcom, was assuming the role of chairman of the board.

Acquisition by Cincinnati Bell

On July 10, 2017, Cincinnati Bell announced it would acquire Hawaiian Telcom Holdco, Inc., parent of local telephone company Hawaiian Telcom for $650 million. The sale received the approval of the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission (PUC) in April 2018 and was completed in July 2018. Following the completion of the sale to Cincinnati Bell, the company announced that John Komeiji had been promoted to the role of president and general manager. Komeiji had previously served as chief administrative officer and general counsel. On January 7, 2020, Su Shin was promoted to the position of president and general manager following Komeiji's resignation to assume the post of general counsel at

Kamehameha Schools Kamehameha Schools, formerly called Kamehameha Schools Bishop Estate (KSBE), is a private school system in Hawaii established by the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Estate, under the terms of the will of Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, who was a formal membe ...

. In September 2021, Cincinnati Bell was acquired by

Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets Macquarie Group Limited () is an Australian global financial services group. Headquartered and listed in Australia (), Macquarie employs more than 17,000 staff in 33 markets, is the world's largest infrastructure asset manager and Australia's t ...

Bankruptcy

On December 1, 2008, the company filed for

Chapter 11 bankruptcy Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code (Title 11 of the United States Code) permits reorganization under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. Such reorganization, known as Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is available to every business, whe ...

after missing an interest payment on its debt. With the bankruptcy, The Carlyle Group's ownership had been reduced to a small stake. In November 2009,

Cerberus Capital Management Cerberus Capital Management, L.P. is an American private equity firm,Leaders Magazine"Providing Economic Opportunity: An Interview with The Honorable Dan Quayle, Chairman, Cerberus Global Investments, LLC". specializing in distressed investing. ...

announced to the bankruptcy court that it had acquired $7.6 million of Hawaiian Telcom's debt. The company's plan to reduce its debt by more than $800 million was approved by Judge Lloyd King of the

U.S. Bankruptcy Court United States bankruptcy courts are courts created under Article I of the United States Constitution. The current system of bankruptcy courts was created by the United States Congress in 1978, effective April 1, 1984. United States bankruptcy c ...

on November 13, 2009. The plan required approval by the

Hawaii Public Utilities Commission The Hawaii Public Utilities Commission (HPUC) is a public utilities commission, a quasi-judicial tribunal, which regulates public service companies operating in the U.S. state of Hawaii. In 2017 HPUC authorized smart inverters to increase grid s ...

. After leaving bankruptcy, the company's stock became publicly traded on the

NYSE The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District, Manhattan, Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the List of stock exchanges, world's largest s ...

in 2010, moving to

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...

in 2011.

Cable franchise

On June 24, 2011, The State of Hawaii Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs issued a 15-year cable franchise license to Hawaiian Telcom, thus ending Oceanic Time Warner's 35-year monopoly as the state's sole

cable TV Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with broadc ...

provider. Hawaiian Telcom launched the service on July 1, 2011, after a year of testing in the Honolulu area. Island-wide service began in 2012.

Fiber optic network

In 2014, Hawaiian Telcom launched 500 megabits per second broadband after investing $125 million in its fiber optic network.

References

{{Authority control The Carlyle Group companies Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2008 Private equity portfolio companies Privately held companies based in Hawaii Telecommunications companies of the United States Verizon Communications Telecommunications companies established in 1883 Companies based in Honolulu Communications in Hawaii 1883 establishments in Hawaii Cerberus Capital Management companies Cincinnati Bell 1967 mergers and acquisitions 2000 mergers and acquisitions 2005 mergers and acquisitions 2018 mergers and acquisitions