Subject: Stentor, Bell Canada, Independents - Some History
  From: Mark J. Cuccia, 1996/05/29

Recently, I mentioned in the Digest (Re: An Old Stromberg Stepper)
that Pat is correct that the history of US Telcos is a fascinating
one, and I continued that the history of Canada's telcos, which in
many ways parallels that of the US, is also an interesting one. What
follows is some of the history of Canada's telephone industry. I want
to thank Nigel Allen ([email protected], http://www.io.org/~ndallen/) for
looking over this and helping me "fine-tune" it.

Alexander Graham Bell lived a good part of his life in Canada,
particularly in rural Baddeck in Nova Scotia. There is also a
telephone museum there, which my retired parents had a chance to visit
when they travelled to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland four Summers ago.
My Dad gave me copies of some photos he took of the exhibits at the
Nova Scotia telephone museum. (I only wish that I could remember where
I "buried" those pictures with my papers!)

The Bell Telephone Company of Canada was incorporated on 29 April 1880
to operate telephone exchanges throughout Canada, and to manufacture
telephones and associated equipment. This was initially done under a
licensing or franchising arrangement with the US-based American Bell
Telephone Company, similar to the franchise arrangements for Bell
companies in the US. Bell Canada served primarily the populated areas
of Quebec and Ontario, but it also operated exchanges in the Atlantic
provinces, and at one time operated exchanges in provinces west of
Ontario (Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta).

Bell Canada's "Mechanical Department" was set up in 1882. The
"Mechanical Department" was incorporated as the Northern Electric
Manufacturing Company Ltd. in 1895. In 1899, Bell Canada purchased the
Barrie and Johnson Wire and Cable Company of Montreal, which in 1911
was renamed Imperial Wire and Cable. Imperial and Northern Electric
merged in 1914 to become Northern Electric Ltd. In 1976 Northern
Electric became Northern Telecom and has recently become known as
Nortel. It still is partially owned by the holding company BCE Inc.
(formerly known as Bell Canada Enterprises), which also owns Bell

In years past, Northern Electric also had a licensing arrangement with
Western Electric. For a while, WECO owned as much as 44% of NECO. As a
collector of nostalgic mid-20th Century telephones, I know that NECO
equipment was *virtually identical* to that of WECO. Both used the
same model numbers for telephones and parts. Even NECO's old three-slot 
payphones looked *just like* WECO's. In Canada, NECO phones had the stamp 
"Northern Electric - Made in Canada", written in the same 'lightening-bolt'
script used by Western Electric.

Just like Cincinnati Bell and Southern New England Telephone, Bell
Canada could be considered to have been a "semi" Bell operating
company of the Bell System. As recently as 1972, AT&T owned stock in
Bell Canada, although only a paltry 2%. In 1968, The Bell Telephone
Company of Canada officially changed its name to simply Bell Canada.
Prior to 1970, Bell Canada also used the *same* older Bell logo (the
one which looked more realistically like an actual bell) however the
words "Bell Canada" were written inside of the bell instead of the
words "Bell System". When the Bell System in the US changed over to
the more modernisitic looking Bell logo sometime around 1970, Bell
Canada retained the older Bell logo for a few more years, but
eventually dropped it altogather.

As WECO also manufactured or distributed non-telephonic equipment, so
did NECO, although NECO was still manufacturing or distributing such
items well after WECO had spun-off most non-telephone manufacturing
and sales into Graybar Electric by 1930. Northern Electric also
manufactured electrical equipment and parts, household appliances, and
electronic consumer goods, such as radios, TV's, phonographs, audio
amplifiers, movie equipment, etc.  NECO even manufactured bells -- not
just bells for telephone sets, but all sorts of bells, even sleigh
bells. In 1923, NECO even started radio station CHYC, just as
AT&T/WECO/Bell-Labs was involved in radio broadcasting for a while in
the 1920's.

Bell Canada and Northern Electric also had a licensing arrangement
with AT&T's Bell Labs. When the US Government and AT&T reached their
Consent Decree in 1956 to settle the 1949 government antitrust suit
against AT&T, the involvement in Bell-Canada/NECO by AT&T/WECO/Bell 
Labs began to decline.  NECO set up its own research and development
facilities in Belleville ON in 1957, and in Ottawa in 1959. Bell
Canada also began its own R&D facilities.  In 1971, Bell Canada and
NECO merged their R&D facilities in a new organization, Bell Northern
Research (BNR).

On 30 June 1975, AT&T and Bell-Canada/NECO formally terminated their
service arrangement, based on a decision reached in 1973. This ended
the close relationship between AT&T and Bell Canada which had been in
existence for close to 100 years. However, telcos in both Canada and
the US continue to work closely in developing telecommunications
standards for North America, and Canada remains an integral part of
the telephone numbering/dialing plan, switching/routing network,
billing/rating accounting arrangements, etc. for North America.

In the early years of this century, Bell Canada's operating exchange
territory extended west of Ontario, into Manitoba, Saskatchewan and
Alberta.  By the early 1920's or so, the governments of these three
prairie provinces purchased the operations of Bell Canada in their
respective provinces, and formed what has become known as MTS,
Saskatel and AGT. In more recent years, these provincial governments
have been in the process of privatizing their telephone operations. So
far, only AGT has been sold off by the Alberta government into the
holding company, Telus. Manitoba's government is considering
privatizing MTS. As far as I know, the Saskatchewan government still
owns Saskatel.

During the earliest years of this century, many small local
independent telephone companies were formed, usually operated by farm
families and private investors, to provide telephone service in small
towns and rural areas. From what I understand, there were even
locations where there was competition from the independent telephone
industry, with an independent telco competing against Bell Canada, or
several independents competing against Bell Canada and each other,
just as independents and Bell in the US had their competitive period
early in the century.

In 1905, the Canadian Independent Telephone Association (CITA) was
formed, similar to the USITA which was formed some ten years earlier
in the 1890's.  CITA negotiated interconnection and operational
standards between its independent member telcos and Bell Canada, and
it has assisted with developing better toll revenue settlements for
the usually smaller local independent "non-Stentor" telcos in Canada.

At times, the relationship between Bell-Canada/TCTS companies and the
independents weren't always "friendly". As recently as February 1984,
the "Toll Wars" started between EdTel and AGT. EdTel (still at that
time the municipally owned telco in Edmonton AB) began to "scramble"
its AMA (Automatic Message Accounting) billing records for outbound
toll calls, all routed through AGT (still at that time the provincially 
owned telco for Alberta), due to a dispute regarding toll revenue
settlements. AGT retaliated by intercepting all outgoing toll traffic
from EdTel at AGT's toll and operator switch for an (ONI) Operator
Number Identification, "What is the number you are calling from,
please?" A few months later, an agreement was reached between AGT and
EdTel regarding the division of toll revenues, and things returned to
normal. Last year, Telus, now the parent company of AGT, purchased
EdTel from the Edmonton city government. For the time being, Telus
will continue to provide telephone service in Edmonton using the EdTel

In 1931, Bell Canada and the dominant provincial telcos formed the
"Trans-Canada Telephone System" (TCTS). One of TCTS' major goals was
to form a truly Canadian coast-to-coast telephone toll/transmission
network, which was accomplished during that year. Prior to the
completion of the TCTS network, long-haul telephone calls from one end
of Canada to another had to traverse through AT&T's Long-Lines in the
US. TCTS became known as Telecom-Canada in the late 1970's or early
1980's, and reorganized as Stentor around 1992/93.

For years, the major operating telcos in the Atlantic provinces (all
now members of Telecom Canada, now Stentor) have been partially held
by Bell Canada. In 1983, Bell Canada, NECO and BNR were placed under
the holding company, Bell Canada Enterprises, now known as BCE Inc.
The Atlantic province telcos are now owned by holding companies, which
BCE owns stock in, including Bruncor (which owns NBTel), MT&T in Nova
Scotia, and NewTel (formerly Newfoundland Telephone). MT&T in turn
holds stock in the Island Telephone Company on Prince Edward Island.
Island Telephone was not a member of TCTS on its own for many decades,
but in more recent years, it has become a member of Stentor
(Telecom-Canada). Also, I don't think that what has become NewTel was
originally a member of TCTS, as Newfoundland (including Labrador) was
not a part of the Dominion of Canada until 1949.

Throughout the decades, many of the small rural independents in Canada
became unviable and were absorbed into nearby larger independents,
Bell Canada, or one of Bell's "sister" TCTS telcos. Sometimes, it
wasn't that the independent became unviable -- it was just that the
once rural area served by an independent had become a suburb or part
of a growing town served by Bell Canada or another TCTS telco. When
the independent was absorbed into a larger company, the customers were
frequently upgraded in service availabilities, such as being converted
from manual (sometimes even magneto) to dial.

At one time, there were small local or rural independents in almost
every province of Canada, including Yukon and the Northwest
Territories.  Traditionally, the toll services in YT/NWT and northern
BC had been provided by CN Telecommunications. CN (Canadian National)
was originally the telegraph division of the Canadian government's CN
Railways. The telephone toll network in YT historically dates back to
the US Army's Alaskan Communications System, also known as the
Northwest Communications System (NCS), constructed during World War
II, along with the Alaska Highway. After the War, the US Army turned
over the Canadian portion of the NCS to Canada's Department of
National Defence. The Canadian Army took over management of the
highway while the Royal Canadian Air Force took over the the
communications line. Canada's Department of Transport took over the
NCS from the RCAF in August 1946, then contracted CN Telegraphs to
maintain and operate the NCS, effective April 1947.

In December 1954, the Department of Transport announced that it
intended to put the NCS up for sale, including the government owned
telegraph and telephone exchanges in Ft.St.John and Dawson Creek BC.
The North West Telephone Company in British Columbia purchased these
two exchanges in July 1956. In April 1958, the Department of Transport
formally turned over the NCS to CN.

CN began expanding telephone services throughout YT/NWT and also began
buying out local independent telcos in YT/NWT/northern BC, beginning
in the late 1950's and throughout the 1960's. In October 1958, CN
purchaed the Yukon Telephone Company which operated local telephone
exchanges in Whitehorse (the capital of the Yukon since 1953), Mayo
and Keno YT. The Yukon Telephone Company dates back to 1920, when it
was founded as the Mayo Utilities Company, providing telephone, power
and light, and water. Mayo Utilities was sold in 1942, the new owner
then sold the non-telephone utilities and changed the name to Yukon
Telephone Company.

In 1962, CN purchased the Yukon Telephone Syndicate from the Northern
Light Power and Coal Company Ltd. of England, which included the
Dawson City (YT) telephone exchange, a magneto board dating back to
1901. In August 1962, CN replaced the magneto board with a dial
exchange. Dawson City had been the capital of the Yukon until 1953.

In 1959, CN began to expand into the NWT. Three local telephone
exchanges (Yellowknife, Hay River and Ft.Smith) were connected to CN's
new Great Slave Lake area toll network by 1961 and thus to the TCTS
network of lower Canada.  By 1962, additional locations were added by
a VHF radio link. CN also began to purchase local telcos in the NWT,
beginning in July 1961 with the Hay River Telephone Company (which
began local service in the late 1950's). On 31 December 1963, CN
bought the Yellowknife Telephone Company which began local service in
1947. In May 1964, CN purchased Ft.Smith's telephone exchange.

Throughout the 1960's, CN also expanded telephone service to other NWT
locations previously without any service. CN and AGT constructed a
microwave link to supplement the recently completed pole lines in
these areas. In the mid 1960's, CN began extending new telephone
service to the lower Arctic islands of the NWT, some of it via
tropospheric scatter radio, in association with construction of the
military's DEW line. In the late 1960's and throughout the 1970's, CN
continued to extend service to additional locations in the northern
part of YT/NWT and along the YT/NWT border, much of this area needing
communications due to the oil and mining industry in the area.

In January 1979, Northwestel was set up as a subsidiary of CN, to
provide the local and toll services of YT/NWT/northern BC. By 1988,
when CNCP (which has since evolved into Unitel) wanted to start
competitive full service toll operations throughout Canada (similar to
what MCI and Sprint had done earlier in the US), they divested
themselves of their telephone operations in YT/NWT/northern BC as well
as Terra Nova Tel in parts of Newfoundland.  CNCP (or Unitel) still
provides most of what still exists of national public telegram and
Telex services in Canada.

Terra Nova Tel, also set up in 1979 as a subsidiary of CN, was an
"independent" telco (and member of CITA) which had been providing
local exchange services in Newfoundland (and Labrador) in areas which
Newfoundland Telephone didn't serve. Terra Nova Tel and Newfoundland
Telephone *DID* interconnect their networks togather, and Terra Nova
Tel also had a toll or tandem switch for its own local switches and to
interconnect with other parts of the TCTS network. When CN divested
their local/regional telephone operations in 1988, (BCE's)
Newfoundland Telephone absorbed Terra Nova Tel, and BCE bought CN's
Northwestel operations in YT/NWT/northern BC.

Telephone services in the eastern and far north Arctic NWT was
originally developed and operated directly by Bell Canada, in the
1960's and 70's. In 1992, BCE transferred its Bell Canada operations
in eastern/Arctic NWT into the (since 1988) BCE held Northwestel,
which has since been merging the operations and identity into a single
unit. The original CN operations of YT and western/southern NWT have
been identified by Alberta's Area Code 403.  The original Bell Canada
operations in eastern/Arctic NWT have been identified by one of
Quebec's Area Codes, 819. Recently, the territorial governments,
Northwestel, Stentor, and Canadian government agencies have requested
a single unique Area Code for Yukon and all of the Northwest
Territories. I understand that Bellcore NANPA has approved the
request, but I don't have any notices of a date for the split to occur
nor do I know what the new Area Code's numericals are going to be.
Northwestel's operations in northern BC will remain in Area Code 604
for now, but that will soon be part of the split into BC's new second
Area Code, 250 to occur later this year.

Today, all of the "non-Stentor" telcos are located throughout Quebec
and Ontario, with one exception. The Prince Rupert City Telephone Co.
is municipally owned, located in Prince Rupert, a town on British
Columbia's west coast. Its local exchange interconnects with (GTE)
BCTel's toll network.

In addition to CITA, two other associations of independent telcos in
Canada are The Ontario Telephone Association (OTA) and L'Association
des Compagnies de Telephone du Quebec (ACTQ). Most of the "non-Stentor" 
telcos are members of CITA. Most of the "non-Stentor" telcos in
Ontario are also members of OTA; likewise most of the "non-Stentor"
telcos in Quebec (including GTE's Quebec-Telephone, for some time also
an "associate" member of Stentor) are also members of ACTQ.
Northwestel has also become an "associate" member of Stentor, as well
as it has been a member of CITA. (GTE's) Quebec-Telephone was not a
member of CITA. I don't know if Stentor has since allowed "associate"
members Northwestel and (GTE's) Quebec-Telephone status as "full"
members, nor do I know if Northwestel is still a CITA member.

Three other major independent or "non-Stentor" telcos in Ontario and
Quebec are (BCE's) Northern Telephone in Ontario and (BCE's) Telebec
in Quebec, and Ontario Northland Telecommunications which is a part of
the Ontario Government's Ontario Northland Transportation/Railways in
northeastern Ontario. Ontario Northland has been a member of CITA but
not of OTA. It provides the toll services for its own small handful of
local exchanges as well as the numerous local exchanges of (BCE's)
Northern Telephone. I don't know what the future of Ontario Northland
Telecommunications will be, due to the present political situation of
the Ontario provincial government. I understand that the provincial
government has discontinued the airline services of Ontario Northland

As for Northern Telephone and Telebec, these have both been
subsidiaries of Bell Canada (now BCE) since the mid 1960's. Neither
Northern Telephone nor Telebec are members of Stentor on their own,
nor are they members of CITA, but they are members of OTA and ACTQ,

Northern Telephone can trace its history back to April 1905, as the
Temiskaming Telephone Company. It began purchasing other nearby local
telephone companies beginning as early as 1906. The name was changed
to the Northern Telephone Company Ltd. in 1928. Northern Telephone
continued to expand its service area and purchasing other telcos, as
far west as the Manitoba border. Its telephone exchanges in parts of
Quebec were under its subsidiary, Northern Quebec Telephone,
Incorporated (Telephone du Nord de Quebec). In 1966, Bell Canada
acquired control of Northern Telephone. The Quebec operations of
Ontario Northland Telecommunications were purchased by Northern
Telephone in 1967. Northern Telephone transferred its western Ontario
operations directly to Bell Canada in 1969. In 1976, Telebec purchased
Northern Telephone's Quebec exchange operations, Telephone du Nord de

Northern Telephone's exchanges have continued to exist as a subsidiary
of Bell Canada (BCE) rather than being completely absorbed, probably
due to Ontario provincial regulations. Since the 1970's, the operating
service area is a string of local exchanges in towns along a stretch
of a branch of the Trans-Canada Highway in central/northeastern
Ontario, from the New Liskeard (ON) area to the Hearst (ON) area,
including Timmins ON.

The town of Cochrane ON is also included in this area along that
branch of the Trans-Canada Highway, however its telephone services and
other utilities are municipally provided by the Cochrane Public
Utilities Commission. In 1910, Cochrane was incorporated as a town,
and its mayor and council franchised out utility services, with an
option to purchase the franchises after ten years, which was indeed
exercised in 1920. The town government purchased the Cochrane area
operations of the Northern Ontario Light and Power Company, and its
Cochrane Telephone Company subsidiary.

Telebec operates a large contiguous block of local exchanges and toll
services in western/central Quebec, as well as smaller blocks of local
exchanges, scattered all over southern and eastern Quebec, including
the local and toll operations of Quebec's Iles-de-la-Madeleine
(located east of NB and north of NS/PEI, in the Gulf of St.Lawrence).
Some of Telebec's other exchanges scattered across southern and
eastern Quebec have toll services provided by Bell Canada or (GTE's)
Quebec-Telephone, while Telebec does directly provide toll switches
itself for some of its other exchanges scattered in small blocks
around southern and southwestern Quebec.

Telebec gets its name from Telephone Becancour, originally the local
telephone company in the town of Becancour, located along the
St.Lawrence River, roughly halfway between Montreal and Quebec City.
Becancour had attained the status of a town around 1965 and was a
consolidation of various municipalities, under a decree by the Quebec
government. A steel plant was to be constructed in Becancour at that
time, although later abandoned. The investors who formed Telephone
Becancour turned the telephone company over to Bell Canada. Similar to
the situation of Northern Telephone in Ontario, Telebec has been a
subsidiary of Bell Canada (BCE) instead of its exchanges being
directly those of Bell Canada, again due to provincial regulations.

Telephone Becancour merged with seven other local Quebec telephone
companies in 1969. The new name was Telebec Ltee. at the incorporation
in May. In the early 1970's, Telebec expanded its service area and
also bought out other local telcos in Quebec. As mentioned earlier
about Northern Telephone, in 1976, Telebec purchased Northern
Telephone's Quebec exchange operations, Telephone du Nord de Quebec.
Telebec continued buying out other local Quebec telcos through the
late 1970's and early 1980's. Its most recent purchase was that of
Sotel which provided service in the area around James Bay, in 1985.

GTE's telephone operations in Canada (most of British Columbia and a
good part of eastern and southern Quebec) are handled through its
subsidiary, Anglo-Canadian. British Columbia's first actual telephone
company was the Victoria and Esquamilt Telephone Company in 1880.
However, in 1891 the Vernon and Nelson Telephone Company was
incorporated which began buying out other telephone companies in the
province. In 1904, the Vernon and Nelson Telephone Company became the
British Columbia Telephone Company Ltd, which obtained a federal
charter in 1916.

In 1955, General Telephone purchased Anglo-Canadian which held
interests in Compania Dominicana de Telefonos (CODETEL) in the
Dominican Republic (which is still associated with GTE), the
Philippines Long Distance Telephone Company (GT&E's Philippines
interests were sold off in 1967, the same year that GT&E purchased the
Hawaiian Telephone Company, prior to 1954 known as the Mutual
Telephone Company in Hawaii), and the British Columbia Telephone
Company. In 1966, GT&E through Anglo-Canadian acquired control of
Quebec-Telephone, which was formed in 1927 and had consolidated many
small local or rural independents in eastern and southern Quebec. The
Automatic Electric Company, the GTE held equipment manufacturer, was
also involved in Canada. AE's Canadian plants supplied most of the the
switching equipment and customer telephone sets in British Columbia.

Many of the independent telephone companies in Canada have recently
begun providing cellular services through a "mobility" subsidiary. The
cellular services of Prince Rupert City Mobility, EdTel Mobility,
Thunder Bay Mobility, NorTel Mobility (Northern Telephone) and Telebec
Mobilite, along with the "mobility" subsidiaries of the Stentor
associate members (NorthwesTel Mobility and Quebectel Mobilite) and
member telephone companies, form Mobility Canada, a Stentor-like
organization for Canadian cellular and wireless. Cochrane Cellular
Mobility, part of the Cochrane (ON) Public Utilities Commission is not
part of Mobility Canada. Being a telco's cellular subsidiary, Cochrane
Mobility is most likely a "B-side" cellular carrier (telco or Mobility
Canada) rather than an "A-side" cellular carrier (non-wireline). The
"A-side" cellular carrier for most of Canada is Cantel, now known as
Rogers-Cantel. Rogers is also a major player in Cable-TV and other
mass-media. Rogers-Cantel Cellular also has had an association with

Two other Canadian telecommunications carriers associated with Stentor
and/or the individual Stentor member telephone companies are Teleglobe
Canada and Telesat. Telesat provides most of Canada's domestic
satellite services and is also involved with the Mobility subsidiaries
of the telephone companies in providing satellite movile telephone
services for the more remote regions of Canada.

Teleglobe Canada is the carrier for Canada's international
telecommunications services outside of North America. For the time
being, Teleglobe is still more-or-less a monopoly. Traffic between
Canada and the US (continental including Alaska) is mostly handled
"directly" between the various US and Canadian Stentor carriers and
telcos. In 1950, international and overseas Canadian traffic handled
by the Canadian Marconi Company and Cable & Wireless Ltd. was taken
over by the government owned Canadian Overseas Telecommunications
Corporation, which has since been renamed Teleglobe Canada.

Today, Stentor and its member telephone companies including Bell
Canada now maintain an association with MCI in the US and BT (British
Telecom) in the UK, while Unitel maintains an association with AT&T.
Sprint and Call-Net are assocaited. Call-Net is now known as

Canada also now has numerous other new telecommunications entities.
Some such as fONOROLA provide resale services. There are other
entities such as MicroCell 1-2-1 which is a PCS company. There has
also been talk of competitive local telephone service, and even
occasional murmurings of COCOTs (private payphones). Presently, all
public or pay telephone service in Canada is provided by the local
Stentor or independent telephone company in their respective

Most of the remaining local independent telcos in Ontario and Quebec
are either municipally-owned, investor-owned, or are local
"co-operative" associations. The independent telcos in Quebec and
Ontario had been provincially regulated for many years, but a few
years back, the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications
Commission) took over the regulatory authority from the Ontario
Telephone Service Commission and Quebec's regulatory agency. Bell
Canada and GTE's British Columbia Telephone Company have been
federally regulated for decades, while the individual dominant
provincial telcos of TCTS (Telecom Canada, now Stentor) were regulated
by their own provincial regulatory agencies. In the past few years,
the federal CRTC has taken over regulatory jurisdiction of these
Stentor member telcos from the provincial regulatory agencies.

The following is a list of "independent" or "non-Stentor" Canadian
telcos.  It is about a year old, so I don't know if there have been
any changes (name changes, mergers, take-overs):

CANADIAN INDEPENDENT TELCO's (most but not all are members of CITA):

ONTARIO (most but not all are members of OTA):

Abitibi-Price Telephone
Amtelecom ; Manitoulin Island Telephone (both associated with each other)
Quadro Communications Co-Op. (recent name change from Blanshard Mun.Tel)
Brooke Telecom Co-Operative
Bruce Municipal Telephone
Cochrane Public Utilities Commission (municipal)
Coldwater Communications
Town of Dryden Municipal Telephone
Durham Telephone ; Otonabee Telephone (both associated with each other)
People's Telephone of Forest
Gosfield-North Municipal Telephone
Hay Communications Co-Operative
Huron Telecomm'ns.Co-Op. (recent name change from Huron & Kinloss Mun.Tel)
Hurontario Telephone
Keewatin Municipal Telephone
Kenora Municipal Telephone
Landsdowne Rural Telephone
Mornington Communications Co-Operative
North Frontenac Telephone
North Norwich Telephone
North Renfrew Telephone
Roxborough Telephone
South Bruce Rural Telephone
City of Thunder Bay Tel.Dept. (municipal)
Tuckersmith Communications Co-Operative
Westport Telephone
Wightman Telephone

Northern Telephone:

(a subsidiary of BCE; NOT a member of Stentor on its own; a member of
OTA but NOT a member of CITA; Does not have Toll/Tandem switches of
its own; its local switches home on those toll switches of Ontario
Northland Telecommunications.)

Ontario Northland Telecommunications:

(a member of CITA but NOT a member of OTA; provincially owned by Ontario
Northland Transportation/Railways; DOES have some of its OWN Toll/Tandem
switches- and a few local switches of its own; Northern Telephone's local
switches home on Ontario Northland Telecom's Toll/Tandem switches.)

QUEBEC (all are members of ACTQ):

ACTQ but NOT a member of CITA; DOES have its OWN Toll/Tandem switches, but
some of its local switches also home on toll switches of Bell Canada, and
one homes on (GTE's) Quebec-Telephone.)

Corp.de Tel.de la Baie
la Cie de Tel.de Courcelles
Comp.de Tel.de Lambton
Comp.de Tel.de Nantes
Comp.de Tel.de St.Ephrem (homes on (GTE's) Quebec-Telephone)
Comp.de Tel.de St.Liboire de Bagot
Comp.de Tel.de St.Victor (homes on (GTE's) Quebec-Telephone)
Sogetel (most switches home on (GTE's) Quebec-Telephone, two home on Bell)
    Tel.Daaquam (homes on Sogetel)(Tel.Daaquam is now owned by Sogetel)
Comp.de Tel.Upton
Co-Op de Tel.Valcourt
Comp.de Tel.Warwick

(GTE's) Quebec-Telephone:
(a member of ACTQ but NOT a member of CITA; DOES have toll/tandem swtches 
for its own local switches to home on, as well as for local switches of 
nearby small independents including some Telebec exchanges; is a Stentor 
ASSOCIATE member.)


NorthwesTel (YT/NWT/northern BC)
(BCE held; is a Stentor ASSOCIATE member; has been a CITA member; has 
toll/tandem switches)

Edmonton Telephones (AB)
(has NO toll switches of its own; has been a CITA member)
*In early 1995, EdTel was purchased from the Edmonton city government by 
Telus, the parent company of AGT*

Prince Rupert City Tel.Co. (BC)
(has NO toll/tandem switches; is a CITA member; its single local exchange 
switch with only two or three 604-NNX codes -- soon to be 250-NNX codes -- 
homes on GTE's BC Tel)

Here are the URL's of the home pages for some of the above mentioned
companies. Many of them have a historical section you can click to
giving a chronology of their telephone service development:

http://www.nt.net/nortel/nortel.htm (Northern Telephone)
http://www.yukonweb.wis.net/business/nwtel (Northwestel)
http://www.onlink.net/puc (Cochrane ON Telephone/Utilities)
http://www.mobility.com (Mobility Canada)
http://www.rogers.com (Rogers-Cantel)
http://www.magi.com/~ota (Ontario Telephone Association)
http://www.nortel.com (Northern Telecom)
http://info.ic.gc.ca (Industry Canada)

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