(NTC), emerged in this market by absorbing other private telephone companies. It controlled most of telephony in Britain before the 1880 ruling on the Telegraph Act 1869 mandated a nationalised service - which was instated in 1911 prior to the absorption of the NTC into the GPO in 1912.

The trunk network was unified under GPO control in 1896 and the local distribution network in 1912. A few municipally owned services remained outside of GPO control. These were Kingston upon Hull, Portsmouth