Whidbey Telecom (legally Whidbey Telephone Company and often called Whidbey Tel) is a private, independent telecommunications company operating on the South End of Whidbey Island in Washington State, the community of Point Roberts, Washington, and its affiliate Hat Island Telephone Company on Hat (Gedney) Island. Whidbey Telecom has been locally owned and operated since it started business in 1908. History Whidbey Telephone was founded in 1908 by local business owners and farmers in Langley, Washington. They wanted to provide locally-owned telephone service to the Whidbey Island community. By 1902, all residents of South Whidbey had access to the Whidbey Telephone system. The end of World War II saw an influx of new residents to Whidbey Island, putting a significant burden on the small phone company. By 1950, the company began to make major upgrades to its network but prior to this was losing money. In 1953 local businessman David C. Henny purchased a controlling interest in Whidbey Telephone Company. Under his leadership, the company restructured and become profitable again. All while concurrently completing much-needed upgrades to the infrastructure. The Henny family still controls the company, today. Until 1961, Whidbey Telephone had overhead wires, and when the storms came, the lines went down due to wind, trees, and snow. After several winters, where more than 60% of their customers lost service, the company decided to bury its entire network. By 1961, 100% of its lines were buried, a first for local telephone companies. Since then there has not been widespread service disruption due to damaged to company-owned infrastructure. Whidbey Telephone became the first local phone company (west of the Rocky Mountains) to provide Internet access to its customers in 1994. In 2000, Whidbey began providing DSL service to its customers. In just two years, the entire service area, including Point Roberts and Hat Island had DSL service available. For a few years, the company's Internet division, Whidbey.NET, even offered DSL to residents in Verizon territory on Whidbey Island and other local communities. Whidbey Telecom's current internet and phone service area includes all of South Whidbey Island, including Clinton, Langley, Freeland, and most of Greenbank, Washington, as well as Hat (Gendney) Island, and Pt. Roberts. In 2016 Whidbey Telecom announced it would be installing fiber optic cables to homes and businesses in its service area. The BiG GiG® Fiber Network launched later that year in Langley, making Whidbey Telecom the only internet