Embarq

A 2009 image of the Embarq headquarters in Overland Park, Kansas.

C. L. Brown founded Brown Telephone Company in the small town of Abilene, Kansas. The company was a landline telephone company that operated as a competitor to the Bell System.[2] Brown acquired a number of other local telephone companies, merging them under the name United Telephone Company in 1911.[3]

A termination block station in Port Charlotte, Florida with United Telecom markings.

In 1938, after emerging from bankruptcy, United Telephone Company became United Utilities.[3] The company grew steadily through acquisitions and changed its name to United Telecommunications in 1972, at which time it provided local telephone service in many areas of the Midwest and South. United Telecom also operated many other types of businesses. United Telecommunications United Information Systems (UIS) group acquired On-Line Systems, Inc, a company that offers business and database applications hosted on DEC time-sharing systems ca. 1980.[4][5] In 1980 United Telecom launched a national X.25 data service, Uninet. To enter the long-distance voice market, United Telecom acquired ISACOMM in 1981 and US Telephone in 1984.

Southern Pacific Communications Company (SPCC), a unit of the Southern Pacific Railroad, began providing long-distance telephone service shortly after the MCI Telecommunications Corp. v. FCC (Execunet II)[6] decision late in 1978. The railroad had an extensive microwave communications system along its rights of way used for internal communications. In 1972 they began selling surplus time on that system to corporations for use as their own Private Line Network, thereby circumventing AT&T's then-monopoly on public telephony, later expanding to fiber optic cables laid along those same rights of way subsequent to the Execunet II decision late in 1978. Prior attempts at offering long-distance service were not approved by the Federal Communications Commission, though the company's fax service (SpeedFAX) had been permitted. SPCC was headquartered in Burlingame, California, where Sprint still maintains a technology lab on Adrian Court.

As mentioned above, SPCC was only permitted to provide Private Line service and not switched services. When MCI Communications released EXECUNET, SPCC went to court with the FCC to get the right to offer switched services.

The SPRINT service was first marketed to six metropolitan areas, New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Diego and Anaheim. The switches were located in Los Angeles and New York. A customer, required to have a Private Line connection to one of these switches in order to use the service, paid an access fee per Private Line. The customer was then billed at 2.6 cents per tenth of a minute increment.

Southern Pacific Communications became part of GTE in 1982 under the name GTE Sprint. GTE had previously acquired a national X.25 provider, Telenet, in 1979.

In 1986, GTE Sprint was merged with GTE Telenet, US Telecom, Uninet, and ISACOMM to form US Sprint. This was a partnership owned by GTE and United Telecom. In 1989 United Telecom purchased controlling interest in US Sprint. In 1991 United Telecom completed its acquisition of US Sprint. That same year United Telecom changed its name to Sprint due in large part to the increased brand recognition of Sprint, as a result of the successful Candice Bergen "Dime Lady" advertisement campaign.

In 1983, United Telecom's Telespectrum began offering cellular telephone services in United's territories. In 1988, Telespectrum was sold to Centel for $763 million to fund United's purchase of an additional 30% of U.S. Sprint. This purchase gave United operational control of US Sprint.

In 1993, Sprint merged with Centel,[7] which allowed Sprint to provide local service in a total of 18 states and put them back in the wireless business. In late 1994 and early 1995, Sprint via Sprint Spectrum (a joint venture between Sprint and several cable companies) acquired near nationwide PCS spectrum. Later in 1995 the company began to offer wireless service under the Sprint PCS brand.

On October 5, 1999, Sprint and MCI WorldCom announced a $129 billion merger agreement between the two companies. The deal would have been the largest corporate merger in history at the time. However, the deal did not go through because of pressure from the United States Department of Justice and the European Union on concerns of it creating a monopoly.

In 2003, Sprint began recombining their local telecom, long-distance, wireline, and wireless business units into a new company, marketing the combined company as "One Sprint". In April 2004, the separately traded wireless tracking stock, "PCS", was absorbed into the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) "FON" ticker symbol, Sprint's former ticker symbol. (FON stood for "Fiber Optic Network", which was Sprint's bragging right, but was also a homophone of the word "phone"). This was challenged in many lawsuits by Sprint PCS shareholders claiming the stock was devalued through the ratio of 1 share of PCS stock for 1/2 share of FON stock. Sprint agreed to settle with the shareholders for $57.5 million.

In December 2004, Sprint announced it would acquire NEXTEL Communications, renaming itself Sprint Nextel, and planned to spin off their local telephone operations. The $35 billion deal was completed in August 2005.[8][9] In February 2006, the new name and logo for the spin-off, which is called Embarq, were revealed. The spin-off was completed in May 2006.

On October 27, 2008, Embarq announced that it would be acquired by Monroe, Louisiana-based CenturyTel, Inc. in an all-stock transaction valued at $11.6 billion, including the assumption of $5.8 billion in Embarq's debt. CenturyTel's CEO Glen Post became CEO of the combined company. On June 2, 2009, CenturyTel and Embarq announced that the combined entity would be called CenturyLink.[10] The acquisition was completed on July 1, 2009.[11] The change to CenturyLink took place in October 2009.