Tenn. Code § 65-29-128
Any corporation organized on a nonprofit or a cooperative basis for the purpose of supplying telephone service and owning or operating telephone service lines in a state adjacent to this state shall be permitted to construct or acquire extensions of such lines and to transact business in this state without complying with any statute of this state pertaining to the qualification of foreign corporations for the transaction of business in this state. Any such foreign corporation, as a prerequisite to the construction or operation of such extension of its lines into and the transaction of business in this state, shall, by an instrument executed and acknowledged in its behalf by its president or vice president under its corporate seal attested by its secretary, designate the secretary of state its agent to accept service of process in its behalf. In the event any process shall be served upon the secretary of state, the secretary of state shall forthwith forward the same by registered mail to such corporation at the address thereof specified in such instrument. After such designation, such corporation may sue and be sued in the courts of this state and shall have all the rights, powers, privileges and immunities of a cooperative.
T.C.A. § 65-29-128