KCOM Group

KCOM Group Limited (formerly Kingston Communications) is a UK communications and IT services provider. Its headquarters are in the city of Kingston upon Hull, and it serves local residents and businesses with Internet and telephony services. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange but is now privately owned by Macquarie Group. For historical reasons, the Hull area has no BT landlines, and the vast majority of residents and most businesses in Hull, Hessle, Cottingham and Beverley are served only with telecoms services by KCOM. On 22 August 1902, Hull Corporation (which later became Hull City Council) was granted a licence under the Telegraph Act 1899 to operate a municipal telephone system in the Kingston upon Hull area, opening its first telephone exchange on 28 November 1904 at the former Trippett Street Baths. At the time, there were a number of such municipal telephone companies around the UK, all of which – with the exception of the one in Hull – were gradually absorbed into the Post Office Telephone department, which later became British Telecom (BT). Hull's bid to renew its licence in 1914 was made conditional on the £192,000 purchase of the National Telephone Company infrastructure in the city. The council gave its approval, securing the future of the country's only remaining municipally owned telephone corporation. The first rotary automatic exchange opened in 1922, and from 1934 Strowger exchanges were installed. Rotary and Strowger exchanges were operated to 1975 and 1988 respectively, and two crossbar exchanges to 1989, when the network became fully digital.