On Wednesday 03-June-2009, the new name for the merged CenturyTel and
Embarq (old Sprint United and Centel) ILECs was announced:
CenturyLink.

All of the state regulatory agencies necessary have finally approved
the merger, and now only federal approval (FCC) is still needed.

And now on Wednesday, they announced the new name of CenturyLink.

It's logo will be simple block letters, the C and L being cap'd.
Century is in a medium gray and Link is in black. The logo itself
is a ring of alternating light and dark green "tabs", and sort of
resembles to SOME degree, BP-Amoco's British Petroleum logo.

I don't know if they will consolidate the various OCNs (Operating
Company Numbers) as used in NECA, Neustar-NANPA, and Telcordia-TRA
numbering/routing/network/rating/etc. documents... CenturyTel has
preserved different OCNs for the numerous ILECs they have taken over
throughout the years, including different ratecenters of GTE and
Contel at various times. There are several operating company names
and numbers for CenturyTel in Louisiana depending on which particular
part of GTE or Contel it was prior to the 1970s! And each successive
local telco that CenturyTel took over has a unique OCN!

CenturyLink might have a rather "hi-tech" type of name rather than a
more "down to earth" one, but it still isn't a "goofy" sounding name
like VeriZon, Embarq, Cingular, Qwest, Broadwing, Windstream, etc! LOL!

The corporate HQ will be in CenturyTel's legacy HQ of Monroe LA, in the
northern part of the state where CenturyTel's legacy operating area
originated, although Monroe LA itself is a mid-size city which has
always been "Bell" (Southern Bell/South Central Bell/BellSouth, now
part of SBC's at&t).

Overland Park KS (in the Kansas City area), the legacy HQ for
United/Sprint/Embarq, will also continue to be a major point of
corporate operations.

CenturyTel has been mostly small rural areas, and has purchased many
local independent telcos over the decades. It has also taken over many
one-time GTE and Contel exchange areas, some dating back to the 1970s
(old GTE in Louisiana was sold to CenturyTel circa 1972; old Contel in
Louisiana was sold to CenturyTel circa 1977), but some more recently
in the 1990s (GTE and Contel that GTE chose not to retain following the
circa 1991 GTE/Contel merger) and in 2000 and 2002 (more legacy GTE and
Contel that VeriZon chose not to retain following the formation of
VeriZon in 2000). While there have been some mid-size towns and cities
that have since become CenturyTel, these are still smaller communities.

On the other hand, Embarq (old Centel and old United) has had some
larger communities when compared with CenturyTel, including Tallahassee
FL (also the state capital; old Centel) and Fort Myers and other nearby
areas in Florida (old United).

But this merger will now mean that CenturyTel (under the new CenturyLink
name) will inherit a rather sizeable metro area from Embarq (legacy
Sprint/Centel), that being the Las Vegas NV metro area!

I do wonder if the new CenturyLink will hold onto all of its properties
after the merger is complete -- GTE and later VZ sold off many one-time
Contel areas and even long-time GTE areas in the 1990s/2000s as
mentioned above!

There are numerous media/news/press reports (radio/TV/newspaper
website articles0 regarding the new CenturyLink name... these can all
be obtained from doing a Google news search on Embarq or CenturyTel or
CenturyLink.

Mark J. Cuccia
markjcuccia at yahoo dot com
Lafayette LA, formerly of New Orleans LA pre-Katrina