The Southern New England Telephone Company is a local exchange carrier owned by AT&T. It started operations on January 27, 1878 as the District Telephone Company of New Haven. It was the founder of the first telephone exchange, as well as the world's first telephone book. Since its inception, SNET has held a monopoly on most of the telephone services in the state of Connecticut; the only remaining exception is the Greenwich and Byram exchanges where Verizon New York provides telephone service. SNET and Cincinnati Bell were the only two companies in the old Bell System that the old... AT&T only had a minority stake in; by 1983, AT&T's stake was only 19.6 percent. Therefore, neither is considered a Bell Operating Company; rather, they are considered independents. The Southern New England Telephone Company was purchased in 1998 by SBC Communications, which subsequently purchased the old AT&T, taking its name as the "new" AT&T. The Southern New England Telephone Company currently does business as AT&T Connecticut. In 2006, AT&T merged the operations of Southern New England Telecommunications into AT&T Teleholdings.
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