Continental Telephone
| Public | |
| Industry | Communications Services |
| Fate | Acquired |
| Successor | GTE |
| Founded | 1960 |
| Defunct | 1991 |
| Headquarters | Atlanta, GA |
| Products | Internet access, Local wireline and wireless telecommunication services |
ConTel Corporation (Continental Telephone) was the third largest independent phone company in the United States prior to the 1996 telecom deregulation. It was acquired by GTE in 1991.
ConTel Corporation's earliest predecessor, Telephone Communications Corporation, was founded by Charles Wohlstetter. After working as a Wall Street runner in the 1920s and as a Hollywood screenwriter in the 1930s, Wohlstetter returned to Wall Street in the 1940s and became a financier. In 1960 he made what he would later call a bad investment in an Alaskan oil company that would become the impetus for ConTel. To help turn that investment around, Wohlstetter raised $1.5 million to form a holding company, Telephone Communications Corporation. Some 30 years later, Wohlstetter's $1.5 million investment had grown into a company that had acquired and consolidated more than 750 smaller companies with total corporate assets hovering around $6 billion.
One of the company's first acquisitions was Central Western Company, which merged with Telephone Communications in 1961 to form the new parent Continental Telephone Company. The acquisition of Central Western, along with Harfil, Inc., provided the company with customer billing, general accounting, and toll separation services.
Continental based its early acquisition strategy on Kriegsspiel, a historical war game German generals played at Prussian war colleges. Wohlstetter applied the tenets of the game to telephone company operations and amassed detailed information on each independent telephone company in the United States.
Many of the early acquisitions were made through exchanges of stock, including the 1964 merger with Independent Telephone Company that doubled the company's size and changed its name in the process to Continental Independent Telephone Corporation. By the close of 1964, Continental had acquired more than 100 companies operating in 30 states.
The company adopted another new name, Continental Telephone Corporation, in 1965. Also during 1965 Continental acquired 65 more telephone companies and again doubled its size. By 1966 Continental had acquired more than 500 independent companies, had become the third-largest independent telephone company in the United States, and was one of the youngest companies ever listed on the .
By 1970 Continental's assets had topped $1 billion, and sales volume had risen to $120 million. Aside from its dominating telephone business, the company's activities by that time had grown to include cable television systems, directory publishing, equipment leasing, and data services.
With the number of small independents having diminished considerably by 1970, Continental's pace in acquiring telephone operating companies was reduced. Continental sold its cable television business in 1971, and after a sluggish economy had taken its toll on Continental's manufacturing and supply subsidiaries, those, too, were sold in 1976. Maguire resigned in 1976 because of health problems and was succeeded as president by James V. Napier, a former executive vice-president. That same year, Continental became the first telephone company outside the Bell system to install a digital telephone switching system, a move that provided improved network operating efficiency, allowed the introduction of new calling features, and started the transition away from operations dominated by rural service areas.
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