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 and GTE
Verizon was formed after the merger of Bell Atlantic Corp. and GTE Corp. and the company was incorporated in Delaware on June 30, 2000. It became the second largest telecommunications company and the largest wireless provider with more than 260,000 employees on V Charles Lee is Chairman and Ivan Seidenberg, President; both of them served as co-CEO of the newly formed Verizon.[9]