Verizon
 | |
| Type: | Publicly held |
| Industry: | Telecommunications |
| Founded: | 1983 |
| Founder(s): | Charles R. Lee Ivan R. Seidenberg |
| Headquarters: | New York |
| Country: | USA |
| Businesses: | Wireless & Wireline |
| Employees: | 194,000 |
| Revenue: | $106.6 billion operating 2010 [1] |
| Website: | Vsrizon |
| Facebook: | Verizon |
| LinkedIn: | Verizon |
| Twitter: |  @Verizon
|
| Key People | |
| Ivan G. Seidenberg, Chairman and CEO Lowell C. Mc Adam, President and COO | |
Verizon Communications, Inc. (Verizon) is a global telecommunications and broadband provider serving more than 104 million connection in the United States. The company employs has more than 196 thousand workers and generated $106.6 million in 2010. It's headquarters is located in New York, New York.[2]
Verizon is a composite of Dow Jones Industrial Index and it is trading on NASDAQ and NYSE under the ticker symbol
History
Bell Atlantic Corp
Verizon Communications, Inc. was formerly known as Bell Atlantic Corporation which was founded in 1983, one of the companies that can be traced back to the Bell System, an organizational structure of the American, Telephone and Telegraph Co. (AT&T), the largest private company in the U.S. with 1 million employees. The Bell System is a legally sanctioned, regulated monopoly under the Communications Act of 1934 with an objective to make available...for all the people of the United States a rapid, efficient nationwide...wire and radio communication service with adequate facilities at reasonable charge." [3]
On January 1 1984,a Divestiture occurred. The 22 local operating companies under AT&T split into seven regional holding companies (RHC).[4] The divestiture was part of the out court settlement agreement between AT&T and the US Department of Justice, which filed an anti-trust law suit against the company for unlawfully monopolizing the telecommunications market. The case lasted for 13 years and ended in 1982. Bell Atlantic Corporation was one of the seven companies formed as a result of the AT&T split up.[5]
Bell Atlantic Corp.was composed of Bell of Pennsylvania, C&P Telephone Companies of D.C., Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia; Diamond State Telephone, and New Jersey Bell serving the states Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia and the District of Columbia.The company's headquarter was located in Philadelphia.
Bell Atlantic and NYNEX
Nynex was one of the seven RHC companies formed after the divestiture which was composed of the New York and New England Telephone companies operating in the states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont.[6]
In 1997, the Federal Communications Commission approved the $23 billion dollar merger between Bell Atlantic Corp. and NYNEX.[7] Bell Atlantic was retained as the name of merged company and the main office in New York. Raymond W. Smith of Bell Atlantic retained its position as Chairman after the merger while Ivan G. Seidenberg, of NYNEX, became Vice Chairman, President and Chief Operating Officer. When Smith retired in 1998, Seidenberg assumed as Chairman and CEO of the company. The merger of Bell Atlantic and NYNEX is the beginning of the present Verizon Wireless.[8]
Bell Atlantic Corp. and GTE
GTE was the largest independent telephone company in the United States which was formed through mergers and acquisitions from independent small telecommunications companies apart from the Bell System. GTE was founded by John F. O'Connell, Sigurd L. Odegard and John A. Pratt in 1918 when the partners bought Richland Telephone Co. in Wisconsin and later acquired other telephone properties in Wisconsin. The partners formed a corporation in 1920 under the name Commonwealth Telephone Company.Sigurd L. Odegard became the company President.[9]
The company re-organized after the 1929 stock market crash and the Great Depression as General Telephone Corp. in 1933. Theodore Gary and Co. merged with General Telephone Corp. in 1955 and four years later the company merged with Sylvania Electric Products Inc., one of the leading companies in electronics, lighting, radio & television and chemistry & metallurgy. This merger 1n 1959 formed the General Telephone & Electronics Corp (GT&E).[10]
On June 30, 2000, GTE and Bell Atlantic Corporation entered a $116 billion merger forming Verizon Communications, Inc. The combined company was valued $150 billion and became the largest wireline and wireless communications service provider and leader in data services in the United States.[11]
Charles Lee of GTE assumed the Chairmanship while Ivan Seidenberg was named President. The two shared the position and responsibilities of Chief Executive Officer of the newly formed Verizon.[12]