Northern New England Telephone Operations, Inc. was created as a subsidiary of Verizon New England to operate exchanges that Verizon was preparing to sell to
FairPoint Communications in Maine, New Hampshire, and
Vermont.
Sale to FairPoint In 2008, the company was spun off from Verizon and merged into FairPoint. One of the conditions of the sale, despite protest by FairPoint, was that NNETO would be regulated as a
Bell Operating Company. One implication of this condition required FairPoint to follow rules applying to the
Baby Bells under the
Second Computer Inquiry decision in their newly acquired territories. Following the sale, Northern New England Telephone Operations was converted to a
limited liability company (LLC). The company's operations in Vermont were separated into
Telephone Operating Company of Vermont, which is wholly owned by NNETO. NNETO is separate from
Northern Telephone Company of Maine, a FairPoint subsidiary which consists of some former
Contel lines sold off by
GTE in 1994.
Sale to Consolidated Communications Effective January 28, 2019, the company was renamed
Consolidated Communications of Northern New England Company, LLC following the purchase of FairPoint by Consolidated Communications. ==References==