Rochester Telephone (New York)

Rochester Telephone Corporation was a company that provided local telephone service to Rochester, New York. The company was founded in 1920 as a merger of Rochester Telephonic Exchange and Rochester Telephone Company. In 1995 the company became Frontier Corporation, trading on the under the FRO symbol. Ownership passed to Global Crossing in 1999, and then, in 2001, to Citizens Utilities Corporation, which later changed its name to Frontier Communications.

Rochester Telephone Corporation was the thirteenth largest diversified American telecommunications company and the largest telephone company in New York. It provided local telephone service to customers in 14 states and operated subsidiaries in a number of related fields. The company was founded in the fledgling days of the telephone industry as an independent telephone operation, not affiliated with the nationwide Bell network. After suffering the effects of poor management in the middle years of the century, Rochester Telephone recovered and grew rapidly in the 1960s and 1970s. This strong progress allowed the company to successfully diversify in the 1980s.

Principal Subsidiaries: RCI Long Distance; Rotelcom, Inc.; Rochester Tel Mobile Communications; Rochester Tel Cellular Holding Corporation.

Rochester Telephone got its start late in the nineteenth century. Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1875, and the following year he patented it and exhibited his device to great acclaim at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition. By July 1877, the telephone had made its way to Rochester, New York, where a line was strung between the offices of the Phillips Coal Company and its coal yards a mile and a half away. Following this precedent, in 1879, Rochester established two telephone companies, one a franchise of the American Bell Telephone Company, and one a part of the Edison company. The Bell affiliate, called the Rochester Telephonic Exchange, was a branch of the Bell Company of Buffalo.

The two telephone companies competed for less than 18 months before merging under the aegis of the Bell system. In 1880 the company had 50 phone lines, which it provided to residential customers at the rate of $24 a year; businesses paid more for the service. Within six years the number of telephone users in the city had increased exponentially, reaching 1,000. All lines were party lines, and there were no telephone numbers; calls were placed through a switchboard manned by operators, who connected parties by name. Calls passed over lines strung along streets on poles with crossbars, which observers complained were unsightly.

In 1886 the Bell Company announced that customers would no longer be charged a flat fee, but would be charged by call for all telephone use over 500 calls a year. Outraged customers objected, and the Rochester city council revoked the company's franchise. In addition, telephone users staged a strike, removing their receivers at noon on November 20, 1886, and leaving them off the hook for 18 months while the company stood fast. Finally, Bell gave way, offering lower rates, and the strike was ended.

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