Independent telephone company
An independent telephone company was a telephone company providing local service in the United States or Canada that was not part of the Bell System organized by American Telephone and Telegraph. Independent telephone companies usually operated in many rural or sparsely populated areas.
This 1911 advertisement from Seattle shows phone numbers from two different phone companies; the exchanges were not interconnected.
The Bell System was a system of telecommunication companies, led by the Bell Telephone Company and later by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), that dominated the telephone services industry in North America for over 100 years from its creation in 1877 until its antitrust breakup in 1983. The system of companies was often colloquially called Ma Bell, as it held a vertical monopoly over telecommunication products and services in most areas of the United States and Canada. At the time of the breakup of the Bell System in the early 1980s, it had assets of $150 billion and employed over one million people.
1912 Bell System advertisement promoting its slogan for universal service
195 Broadway, AT&T headquarters for most of the 20th century
The Spirit of Communication as used on the Bell System's directories in the 1930s and 1940s
Manhole cover with Bell System logo