HickoryTech, the Mankato telephone company with operations throughout the state, said Monday that it will change its name to Enventis, the brand name it already uses outside of its original telephone territory.
The company will seek shareholder approval of the name change at its annual shareholders' meeting next May.
Once a small-town telephone company, HickoryTech over the past two decades has expanded to become a statewide provider of business telephone and Internet services over a fiber-optic network.
The company was founded in 1898 as the Mankato Citizens Telephone Co., and took the name HickoryTech in 1985. In 1998, HickoryTech expanded to other parts of the state, and in 2005 it acquired Enventis Telecom of Duluth, which provided it with an entry to the Twin Cities business telecom market.
To emphasize its business focus, HickoryTech began using the Enventis name in its extended market. As a result, it already does business under the Enventis name in the Twin Cities, Rochester, northern Minnesota, Fargo, N.D., and Des Moines.