Hawaiian Telcom

Early history

Hawaiian Telcom was founded in 1883 as the Mutual Telephone Company, chartered under the Kingdom of Hawaii. Herman A. Widemann was a co-founder and the President. The original owner was Archibald Scott Cleghorn, father of Princess Ka'iulani. It was the second telephone company chartered in Hawaii, after the Hawaiian Bell Telephone Company in 1880. The Hawaiian Bell Telephone Company was also founded by Herman A. Widemann. Mutual took over Hawaiian Bell in 1894.

With the acquisition of the phone service of the Hawaiian Pineapple Company on the island of Lanaʻi, Mutual owned the phone system of the Hawaiian islands. Mutual changed its name to Hawaiian Telephone Company in 1954, with J Ballard Atherton as company president.

In 1967 Connecticut-based GTE Corp. acquired Hawaiian Telephone and renamed it GTE Hawaiian Tel. After the 2000 merger of GTE with New York–based Bell Atlantic, forming Verizon Communications, GTE Hawaiian Tel became Verizon Hawaii.

Carlyle Group Ownership

In 2004 Verizon Communications finalized a deal to sell Verizon Hawaii to the Washington, D.C.–based investment firm The Carlyle Group. At the time, Carlyle's purchase of Verizon Hawaii was quite controversial with the public and competitive local exchange carriers, Time Warner Telecom and Pacific LightNet, who had doubts about Carlyle's lack of experience operating telecommunication businesses, and their intentions as to raising rates, upgrading the network with optical fiber as former-parent Verizon was doing on the mainland, and possible resale of the business in just a few years, all seen as being detrimental to the public interest.