It’s been a bumpy ride for local exchange carriers since the cellphone became ubiquitous.
(Click here for our list of largest local exchange carriers. Spreadsheets of local exchange carriers and interexchange carriers are also available.)
In 2001, Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. of Little Rock reigned supreme with $568 million in Arkansas-generated revenue and almost a million landlines in operation.
A decade later, AT&T Corp. of San Antonio holds what was once Southwestern Bell’s empire, but in a diminished form. The company’s 2011 revenue was $353 million and it reported 475,105 total lines, fewer than half of the 2001 count.
Most of the loss, however, occurred in residential lines. Southwestern Bell served 632,185 residential lines in 2001, and AT&T served 242,571 in 2011. The number of business lines claimed in its annual report to the Arkansas Public Service Commission decreased from 274,363 to 184,691.
The next largest company, CenturyLink of Monroe, La., had 2001 revenue of $138 million and 271,371 lines. Last year, it reported $84 million in revenue and 156,541 lines. Over the decade, its residential lines decreased from 209,849 to 112,899.
William Stuckey, president of Vantage Telecom LLC in Fort Smith, which does business as Newroads Telecom, competes with the big handlers like AT&T. Stuckey said the market is still competitive on the business end.
“We don’t focus on the residential side, which is really where the shrinkage is,” he said.
He said business landlines will eventually fade away, but Vantage’s forays into high-speed Internet services will provide for that eventuality.
Vantage is working on “anything that doesn’t necessarily require a physical connection,” he said.
Meanwhile, he said, Vantage is concerned with reaching customers who otherwise might pick a bigger brand name like Cox or Windstream.
“We’re kind of like David and Goliath,” he said. “We focus on small businesses. We provide excellent handholding and support from Day One. It’s proved to be a good business model for us. Some of the bigger guys choose not to be that support-intensive.”
Notably, Vantage’s reported revenue was up 45 percent in 2011 as compared with 2010. Stuckey said this reflects a change in Vantage’s method of filing reports rather than an actual change in revenue.
Another company experienced an apparent revenue leap last year. Nexus Communications of Columbus, Ohio, which does business as TSI Home Phone, jumped from less than $1 million to $5.5 million. No one at the company could be reached to explain this change.
However, the website of the Better Business Bureau of Central Ohio says that Nexus “offers residential landline and wireless service under the names TSI Home Phone and ReachOut Wireless to qualified low income customers through the Lifeline and Link-up programs.” Lifeline and Link Up are government-funded programs that give discounts on monthly phone service for the poor.
One company with a solely residential clientele dropped off our list: Bellerud Communications LLC, part of Associated Telecommunications Management Services LLC of Melbourne, Fla. In 2010, Bellerud served 16,309 Arkansas residential lines and had revenue of $2.5 million. By 2011, its revenue had decreased to around $300,000. A receptionist answering the company’s phone number said Bellerud closed last year, and the company’s website now bears nothing but a message stating, “We regret to inform you Bellerud Communications LLC is no longer providing home phone service and you must find a new phone carrier. You may choose from a number of local providers in your area. A list of providers is located in your local telephone directory.”
The parent company, ATMS, is still in business.
Interexchange Carriers See Dramatic Shift
Arkansas’ long-distance phone providers have also changed drastically since 2001.
(Click here for our list of largest interexchange carriers.)
Back then, 10 different companies had interexchange revenue of more than $1 million. In the current market, only six companies made that mark, and many of the names from 2001 have disappeared altogether.
Two of the companies, including 2001’s largest, MCI WorldCom Communications Inc. of San Francisco, are now subsidiaries of Verizon Communications of San Francisco. MCI’s revenue decreased from $49.8 million to $8 million over the decade.
The largest company from last year, SBC Long Distance LLC with Arkansas assessable revenue of $25 million, still had only about half the revenue of the top company from 2001.
Pay phone companies, which are included in this list, have been hit hard by the advent of the cellphone – even in prisons, where cellphones are contraband. Global Tel-Link Corp. of Reston, Va., and Securus Technologies Inc. of Dallas both serve mostly prisons, and both saw their revenue decrease over the past year: Global Tel-Link by about 10 percent and Securus by 60 percent.
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