telco
/ˈtɛlˌkəʊ/ noun
Forms telcos
- noun (informal) A telephone company (historically); a telecommunications company, a telecom.
Synonyms
telephone company telephone service phone company phone service
Etymology
Diachronically, from tel + Co., from the collocation of Tel. Co. as seen, for example, in Bell Tel. Co. or the names of countless local telephone exchange companies (e.g., Savannah Valley Tel. Co., Mutual Tel. Co., Tarrytown Tel. Co.), by abbreviation in the late 19th through mid-20th centuries; synchronically also a clipped compound as tel(ephone) + co(mpany).
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 — from the Wiktionary entry “telco”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details