What was Verizon called before?
It was part of the Bell System monopoly broken in 1984 and was not always known as Verizon. Here is a background about the Verizon name and the former name of the business.
Part I: Origins: The Bell System
The corporation started around the period when Alexander Graham Bell developed the phone in the 1870s. Established in 1877, Bell Telephone Company evolved into a national Bell System combining AT&T Internet and the seven so-called "Baby Bells," smaller telephone businesses. For one complete century, this monopoly has underlined phone service throughout the United States.
Signed in January 1982, the antitrust settlement allowed the Bell System to be split up into independent regional businesses. While the seven Baby Bells distributed local phone service across areas of the United States, AT&T was left in charge of long-distance calls. Out of these seven Baby Bells, three would eventually combine to become the present Verizon communications business.
Verizon and the Baby Bells
Here are the three Baby Bells that came together through mergers over the next two decades to create what's now Verizon.
- NYNEX – The company that assumed the phone service company in New York and some portions of New England. A relatively young company, having originated in 1984 from the split of New York Telephone and New England Telephone.
- Bell Atlantic - Acquired the phone service from New Jersey to Virginia. Also created during the Bell System break up in 1984.
- GTE – Contrary to the remaining seven, GTE was the largest independent telephone company in the United States before the AT&T division. This company was later bought by Verizon in the year 2000.
The Creation of Verizon
In 1997 NYNEX and Bell Atlantic joined to form a new company to provide phone service in the Mid-Atlantic and the Northeastern region. It must be noted that at this time the company was operating under the name of Bell Atlantic.
Then in 2000, Bell Atlantic merged with the independent phone provider GTE in a deal worth more than $50 billion. This led to the formation of what was then the biggest telecommunications firm in the United States. The new company formed by this merger required a new name, which should indicate that the company has a national presence. It adopted the name Verizon – a combination of the Latin word veritas, meaning truth, and horizon.
Verizon entered the market after the Bell Atlantic-GTE merger got the green light in 2000. When selecting Verizon, managers aimed at getting both the name of the company that would look progressive, and such values as reliability and integrity. The horizon portion referred to the company’s vision of offering even better communication services throughout America and internationally.
Original Names of the Baby Bell Ancestors
As we have seen, Verizon originated from telephone companies which themselves were the result of the historic 1984 divestiture of the Bell System. Here's a quick look back at the names those companies held before becoming part of Verizon many years later.
- This stands for New York and New England - New York Telephone Company (NY) and New England Telephone (NE). NYNEX continued to operate under that name until it merged with Bell Atlantic in 1997.
- Bell Atlantic – Before 1984, the Mid-Atlantic telephone service area was managed by such companies as New Jersey Bell, Bell of Pennsylvania, Diamond State Telephone (Delaware), and C&P Telephone (DC/ Mary land/ Virginia). Following these separations, these services were consolidated to form Bell Atlantic.
- GTE – With its history originating from a telephone company in Wisconsin in 1918, GTE was short for General Telephone & Electronics. It functioned under the name for more than six decades until it merged with Verizon in the year 2000.
The selection of “Verizon” signified the advent of a fresh, national telecom giant ready to provide enhanced communications far into the twenty-first century. While Verizon was created out of the older telephone companies, this was an important transition in the rapidly evolving telecommunications industry. The company has since diversified to covering televisions and Internet services to millions of households in America. And that is how the story of Verizon began before arriving at the name it has today.
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