Carolina Telephone and Telegraph Company is a local telephone operating company, part of CenturyLink

CenturyLink

CenturyLink, Inc. is a United States telecommunications firm, headquartered in Monroe, Louisiana. The company, founded as Central Telephone & Electronics Corporation in 1968, later changed its name to Century Telephone Enterprises, Inc. in 1971, and then was called CenturyTel, Inc. from 1999 to 2010...

.

The company was originally an independent company, but was purchased by United Telecom

Sprint Nextel

Sprint Nextel Corporation is an American telecommunications company based in Overland Park, Kansas. The company owns and operates Sprint, the third largest wireless telecommunications network in the United States, with 53.4 million customers, behind Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility...

 and merged with the United Telephone System of North Carolina, becoming a local operating company of Sprint. In 2006 Sprint's landline service was spun off as Embarq

Embarq

Embarq Corporation was the largest independent local exchange carrier in the United States , serving customers in 18 states and providing local, long distance, high-speed data and wireless services to residential and business customers...

, which merged with CenturyTel in 2009 to form CenturyLink.

Service area

Carolina Telephone's service area generally covered most of eastern North Carolina east of Interstate 95

Interstate 95

Interstate 95 is the main highway on the East Coast of the United States, running parallel to the Atlantic Ocean from Maine to Florida and serving some of the most populated urban areas in the country, including Boston, Providence, New Haven, New York City, Newark, Philadelphia, Baltimore,...

 with the exception of areas around Wilmington

Wilmington, North Carolina

Wilmington is a port city in and is the county seat of New Hanover County, North Carolina, United States. The population is 106,476 according to the 2010 Census, making it the eighth most populous city in the state of North Carolina...

 and Goldsboro

Goldsboro, North Carolina

Goldsboro is a city in Wayne County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 37,597 at the 2008 census estimate. It is the principal city of and is included in the Goldsboro, North Carolina Metropolitan Statistical Area. The nearby town of Waynesboro was founded in 1787 and Goldsboro was...

 and areas south of U.S. Highway 74. The company also served customers in the Sandhills and eastern Piedmont

Piedmont (United States)

The Piedmont is a plateau region located in the eastern United States between the Atlantic Coastal Plain and the main Appalachian Mountains, stretching from New Jersey in the north to central Alabama in the south. The Piedmont province is a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian division...

 of North Carolina, primarily south and west of Raleigh

Raleigh, North Carolina

Raleigh is the capital and the second largest city in the state of North Carolina as well as the seat of Wake County. Raleigh is known as the "City of Oaks" for its many oak trees. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city's 2010 population was 403,892, over an area of , making Raleigh...

. The company additionally had a pocket of outlying customers in the Kernersville

Kernersville, North Carolina

Kernersville is a town in Forsyth County in the U.S. state of North Carolina. The population was 17,126 at the 2000 census. In 2007 the U.S. Census estimated the town's population at 22,309. Kernersville is located at the heart of the Piedmont Triad metropolitan area, which consists of the cities...

 area of eastern Forsyth County

Forsyth County, North Carolina

-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 306,067 people, 123,851 households, and 81,741 families residing in the county. The population density was 747 people per square mile . There were 133,093 housing units at an average density of 325 per square mile...

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