Verizon Communications

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"Verizon" redirects here: this article is about the corporation; see also Verizon Wireless, Verizon Online DSL and Verizon FiOS.

Verizon Communications Inc.

Type	Public (NYSE: VZ)
Founded	1983^[1]
Headquarters	New York, NY, USA
Key people	Ivan Seidenberg, Chairman & CEO Dennis Strigl, President & Vice-Chairman
Industry	Communications Services
Products	Broadband Internet services, Television service, Local wireline and wireless telecommunication services
Revenue	≈ $90.000 billion USD (2007)^[2]
Operating income	$6.119 billion USD (2007)
Net income	6.119 billion 4.988 billion paid as dividend to stockholders USD (2007)
Employees	≈239,000 (2007)
Slogan	We Never Stop Working For You. It's the Network.
Website	www.verizon.com

Verizon Communications, Inc. (NYSE: VZ) is an American broadband and telecommunications company and a component of the Dow 30. It was formed in 2000 when Bell Atlantic, one of the Regional Bell Operating Companies, merged with GTE, formerly the largest independent local exchange telephone company in the United States. Prior to its transformation into Verizon, Bell Atlantic had merged with another Regional Bell Operating Company, NYNEX, in 1997. The name is a portmanteau of veritas and horizon.

Verizon was founded in 1983 as Bell Atlantic Corporation. It inherited seven Bell Operating Companies from American Telephone & Telegraph Company (later known as AT&T Corp.) following its breakup. Bell Atlantic's original roster of operating companies included:

Bell Atlantic originally operated in the U.S. states of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, and Virginia, as well as Washington, D.C.

In 1994, Bell Atlantic became the first RBOC to entirely drop the original names of its original operating companies. Ameritech and NYNEX (and SBC Communications in 2002) simply added d/b/a names to its operating companies; U S West and BellSouth had merged their operating companies. Operating company titles were simplified to:

Bell Atlantic logo, 1984–1997.

Bell Atlantic logo, 1997–2000.

Bell Atlantic—Delaware, Inc.
Bell Atlantic—Maryland, Inc.
Bell Atlantic—New Jersey, Inc.
Bell Atlantic—Pennsylvania, Inc.
Bell Atlantic—Virginia, Inc.
Bell Atlantic—Washington, D.C., Inc.
Bell Atlantic—West Virginia, Inc.

In 1996, CEO and Chairman Raymond W. Smith orchestrated Bell Atlantic's merger with NYNEX. When it merged, it moved its corporate headquarters from Philadelphia to New York City. NYNEX was consolidated into this name by 1997.

Prior to its merger with GTE, Bell Atlantic traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the "BEL" symbol.

Bell Atlantic acquired GTE on June 30, 2000 and changed its name to Verizon Communications, Inc. It was among the largest mergers in United States business history. It was the result of a definitive merger agreement, dated July 27, 1998, between Bell Atlantic, based in New York City since the merger with NYNEX in 1996, and GTE, which was in the process of moving its headquarters from Stamford, Connecticut, to Irving, Texas.

The Bell Atlantic–GTE merger, priced at more than $52 billion at the time of the announcement, closed nearly two years later, following analysis and approvals by Bell Atlantic and GTE shareowners, 27 state regulatory commissions and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and clearance from the United States Department of Justice (DoJ) and various international agencies.

The merger of Bell Atlantic and GTE, to form Verizon Communications, became effective on June 30, 2000, with an exchange ratio of 1.22 shares of Verizon Communications Common Stock for each share of GTE Common Stock owned. Fractional shares resulting from the exchange of GTE stock into Verizon Communications shares were sold at a price of $55.00 per share. Verizon began trading on the NYSE under its new "VZ" symbol on Monday, July 3, 2000.

Meanwhile, on September 21, 1999, Bell Atlantic and UK-based Vodafone AirTouch Plc (now Vodafone Group Plc) announced that they had agreed to create a new wireless business with a national footprint, a single brand and a common digital technology – composed of Bell Atlantic's and Vodafone's U.S. wireless assets (Bell Atlantic Mobile (which was previously called Bell Atlantic-NYNEX Mobile by 1997), AirTouch Cellular, PrimeCo Personal Communications, and AirTouch Paging). This wireless joint venture received regulatory approval in six months, and began operations as Verizon Wireless on April 4, 2000, kicking off the new "Verizon" brand name. GTE's wireless operations became part of Verizon Wireless – creating what was initially the nation's largest wireless company before Cingular Wireless acquired AT&T Wireless in 2004 – when the Bell Atlantic–GTE merger closed nearly three months later. Verizon then became the majority owner (55%) of Verizon Wireless.

Genuity was formerly the Internet division of GTE Corp and spun off in 2000.^[3] Level 3 Communications acquired the bankrupt ISP in 2002 for only $137 million; a bargain-basement price considering the $616 million that a pre-Bell Atlantic-merger GTE paid for Genuity (then BBN Planet) in 1997.^[4]

Note this section refers to land lines only, as Verizon Wireless operates nationwide.

Verizon shares were made a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average on April 8, 2004.^[5] Verizon currently has 140.3 million land lines in service. With the MCI merger, it has more than 250,000 employees. Verizon serves customers throughout much of the United States. The primary states that it provides service to include:

These states are served by the following renamed Bell Operating Companies:

Verizon Delaware, Inc. – Also serves a portion of southeastern Pennsylvania
Verizon Maryland, Inc.
Verizon New England Telephone & Telegraph, Inc. – noted with a (*)
Verizon New Jersey, Inc.
Verizon New York Telephone, Inc. – Also serves Southwestern Connecticut
Verizon Pennsylvania, Inc.
Verizon Virginia, Inc.
Verizon Washington, D.C., Inc.
Verizon West Virginia, Inc.

(**) Also served by GTE operating companies (refer below)

It also provides service to secondary markets (mostly from its acquisition of GTE) in:

These states are served by these operating companies:

GTE Southwest, Inc. dba Verizon Southwest,Inc., which serves only Texas.
GTE Florida, Inc. dba Verizon Florida, Inc.
Verizon South, Inc. (marked with a *)
Verizon North, Inc. (marked with a **)
Contel of the South, Inc. dba Verizon Mid-States, Inc. (marked with a ***) Also served by Verizon North.
Verizon Northwest, Inc.(marked with a ****) Operations in California do business as "Verizon West Coast, Inc."
Verizon California, Inc. (marked with a *****)

Due to the rigorous climate and high costs, GTE Alaska was sold to Alaska Power and Telephone Company rather than be merged with Verizon.

Verizon also owns stakes in some international communications companies, most notably 23.14% of Vodafone Italy. On April 3, 2006 Verizon agreed to sell its stakes in Verizon Dominicana (operating in the Dominican Republic), CANTV of Venezuela, and Puerto Rico Telephone Company, Inc. (PRT) in Puerto Rico to Telmex and América Móvil for $3.7 billion.^[6] Verizon's other international investment is 50% ownership of Gibraltar NYNEX Communications.

In 2002, Verizon sold GTE's former telephone operations in 3 states: Missouri and Alabama operations were sold to CenturyTel, and Kentucky operations were sold to Alltel, which later spun off its landline operations as Windstream. In 2005, Verizon sold off GTE's former telephone operations in Hawaii to The Carlyle Group, This operation is now known as Hawaiian Telcom. As of January 16, 2007, Verizon's operations in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont are going to be split off into a new Bell Operating Company, spun off, and merged with FairPoint Communications.

In 2006 Verizon moved its headquarters from New York City to Basking Ridge, New Jersey.

MCI logo, 2003-2006

On February 14, 2005, Verizon agreed to acquire MCI, formerly WorldCom, after SBC Communications agreed to acquire AT&T Corp. just a few weeks earlier.

Media coverage has focused on several ways in which that acquisition, once completed, would benefit Verizon, including economies of scale derived from a potential productivity boost to be achieved via the elimination of thousands of jobs at the combined company, and access to the large base of business customers currently served by MCI. The real benefit to Verizon was the acquisition of long-haul lines. The bulk of Verizon's business is concentrated in the eastern United States. This not only renders the company, effectively, a regional phone company, but also forces it to pay usage fees to long-haul carriers, such as former MCI, to complete calls for its customers whenever those calls go outside the Verizon "footprint". That need is obviated by the MCI acquisition and was key in the long term market position strategy. By January 6, 2006, MCI was incorporated into Verizon with the name Verizon Business. With this merger, Verizon also acquired the naming rights to the Washington, D.C. home of the Washington Wizards and the Washington Capitals, the Verizon Center (formerly known as the MCI Center). Just prior to the acquisition, MCI had purchased an internet services company, Totality.

Verizon, with MCI, was the largest telecommunications company in the United States based on sales of $75.11 billion, profits of $7.4 billion and assets of $168.13 billion. After completion of the BellSouth/AT&T Inc. merger, AT&T Inc. became the largest telecommunications company in the world in terms of assets and profits.^{[citation needed]}

Rank^[7]	Company	Sales	Profits	Assets	Market Value
25	Verizon Communications	75.11	7.40	168.13	93.18
49	AT&T	43.86	4.79	145.63	107.04
131	BellSouth	20.55	3.29	56.55	57.82
	Merged^{[citation needed]}	64.41^{[citation needed]}	8.08^{[citation needed]}	202.18^{[citation needed]}	164.86^{[citation needed]}

Verizon has been involved in various public controversies.

On December 22, 2004, mail servers at Verizon.net were configured not to accept connections from Europe, by default, in an attempt to reduce spam email. Individual domains would only be unblocked upon request. ^[8]

On May 11, 2006, controversy arose when USA Today revealed that Verizon, along with AT&T Inc. and BellSouth, had turned over the call records of millions of U.S. citizens to the National Security Agency. Verizon flatly denied turning over records to the government, but did not comment on whether MCI, which it had acquired in January, had done so. ^[9] On October 12, 2007 the company admitted in a letter to the United States House Committee on Energy and Commerce that it had turned over customer information to the FBI and other federal agencies of the U.S. government approximately 94,000 times from January 2005 to September 2007, providing such information 720 times without being presented with a court order or warrant.^[10]

In September of 2007, Verizon Wireless initially refused to make their mobile phone network available to NARAL Pro-Choice America for a program which allows people to sign up for pro-choice text messages, on the grounds that they had the right to block "controversial or unsavory" messages. They subsequently reversed the decision, saying "It was an incorrect interpretation of a dusty internal policy, that ... was designed to ward against communications such as anonymous hate messaging and adult materials sent to children." and that Verizon has "great respect for this free flow of ideas." ^[11]

In December of 2007, a lawsuit was filed against Verizon by BusyBox developers, for GPL infringement.^[12]

Verizon faces opposition from Maine PUC staff and public advocate office in sale of landline business to Fairpoint Communications. December 2007 Maine PUC advocacy staff grants approval but some opposition remains.^{[citation needed]}

Verizon provides several different types of land line services - standard POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) service as well as VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) and optical fiber line services. In addition, Verizon offers long distance services. Verizon also offers a product that is a joint venture with Microsoft called "Verizon Web Calling", a type of VoIP service used within Windows Live Messenger

Verizon provides Verizon Voice Messaging — voicemail service for residences and businesses.

Verizon VoiceWing is a Voice over IP (VoIP) service offered Deltathree and resold by Verizon ^[13] that offers phone service over a broadband Internet connection. A DSL, cable, or Verizon FiOS Internet connection, a regular telephone, a router, and a telephone adaptor are required for service.

Verizon launched its FiOS Video service in Keller, Texas on September 22, 2005. FiOS TV^[14] uses an optical fiber network to deliver more than 330 total channels, more than 180 digital video and music channels more than 20 high-definition channels, and 1,800 video-on-demand titles.Verizon also provides DIRECTV service as well.

Verizon provides DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) Internet service in many areas where it offers phone service. See Verizon Online DSL.

Verizon recently began offering FTTP (Fiber to the Premises, or Fiber to the Home) to some subscribers. Verizon calls this "FiOS Internet".^[15]

According to the non-profit spam monitoring organization Spamhaus, Verizon has the largest number of known spammers of all networks worldwide (as of August 2, 2007).^[16]

Verizon DSL currently requires a Windows or Mac to install (but not use).

Main article: Idearc Media

The Yellow Pages business of Verizon known as SuperPages, and is a Texas-based sales, publishing and related services with 1,200 directory titles and a circulation of about 121 million copies in 41 states. The web site receives approximately 17 million visitors a month. It had an operating revenue of $3.6 billion in 2004 and employs 7,300 nationwide.^[17] In a move to leverage against higher traffic sites, Superpages linked up with Google to provide search advertising services to its millions of listed businesses. SuperPages will offer its advertisers the ability to bid for Google search terms.^[18]

With an estimated $17 billion in assets, Verizon has spun-off the business unit to finance its expansion in wireless and high-speed Internet services.^[19] Verizon would not be the first Baby Bell to rid itself of its directory publishing operations; Qwest sold off its QwestDex directory services to become Dex Media, and Illinois Bell, now known as AT&T, sold its directory operations to R. H. Donnelley in 1990 ("AT&T Yellow Pages published by R. H. Donnelley").

Airfone — Air-ground radiotelephone service offered by Verizon
AirTouch
Verizon SmartPark — Advanced Telecommunications Services
Verizon Wireless
Idearc
Playlinc

The Verizon Sports Complex in Lake Placid, New York where the bobsleigh, luge, and skeleton track is located.

Current members of the board of directors of Verizon Communications are, James Barker, James Foucault, Zak Bowler, Richard Carrión, Robert Lane, Sandra Moose, Joseph Neubauer, Thomas O'Brien, Hugh Price, Ivan Seidenberg, Walter Shipley, John R. Stafford, and Robert Storey.

On the first page of Stephen King's novel Cell, about a wildfire of murderous insanity spread by cellphones, King quotes the famous line from the Verizon Wireless TV ad campaign: "Can you hear me now?"
In the satirical magazine Mad, Verizon is portrayed in many articles as a faulty, often unreliable phone.

^ The current company named Verizon was founded in 1983 as RBOC Bell Atlantic. This company purchased GTE in 2000, changing its name to Verizon Communications.
^ Verizon Communications Investor Quarterly 4Q2006, Verizon Communications, <http://investor.verizon.com/financial/quarterly/vz/4Q2006/4Q2006.PDF>
^ Haley, Colin C.. "Genuity Jilted by Verizon, Mulls Options", Internet.com, 25 July 2002.
^ Pappalardo, Denise. "Changes afoot for Genuity customers", Network World, 10 February 2003.
^ Isadore, Chris. "AT&T, Kodak, IP out of Dow", CNN/Money, 1 April 2004.
^ Verizon to sell off Latin units
^ The Forbes 2000
^ Verizon persists with European email blockade, John Leyden, The Register, January 14, 2005
^ Public Hearings Sought in Phone Record Scandal, William Fisher, Inter Press Service, May 26, 2006
^ http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2007/10/verizon_surveillance.html
^ Verizon Reverses Itself on Abortion Rights Messages, Adam Liptak, New York Times, September 27, 2007
^ http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2007120713435029
^ "Deltathree Reports First Quarter 2007 Financial Results", 3 May 2007.
^ Verizon FiOS TV: FiOS TV. Retrieved on February 12, 2006.
^ Verizon FiOS: FiOS for Home. Retrieved on September 6, 2005.
^ Spamhaus Statistics: The Top 10. Retrieved on August 2, 2007.
^ "Verizon may sell $17 billion directory services", Billings Gazette, December 7, 2005.
^ "Verizon online directory in ad deal with Google", Reuters, 28 March 2006.
^ Ranii, David. "Donnelley likely to pass on Verizon directories", The News & Observer, 6 December 2005.

v • d • e Spinoffs of American Telephone & Telegraph
1956: Bell Canada • Northern Electric 1984: Ameritech • Bell Atlantic • Bell Communications Research • BellSouth • NYNEX • Pacific Telesis • Southwestern Bell • U S West 1996: Lucent Technologies • NCR 2001: AT&T Broadband • AT&T Wireless
Second-Generation Spinoffs
AT&T Consumer Lease Services • Advanced American Telephones • Agere Systems • AirTouch • Avaya • Dex Media • Idearc • MediaOne Group • R. H. Donnelley Publishing & Advertising of Illinois • Telcordia Technologies • Teradata • Verizon New Hampshire • Verizon Maine • Verizon Vermont (pending)

v • d • e Verizon Communications, Inc.
Corporate Directors	James Barker · Richard Carrión · Robert Lane · Sandra Moose · Joseph Neubauer · Thomas O'Brien · Hugh Price · Ivan Seidenberg · Walter Shipley · John R. Stafford · Robert Storey
Holding Companies	GTE · MCI · NYNEX
Bell Operating Companies	Verizon Delaware · Verizon Maryland · Verizon New England · Verizon New Jersey · Verizon New York · Verizon Pennsylvania · Verizon Washington, D.C. · Verizon West Virginia · Verizon Virginia
GTE operating companies	Contel of the South · GTE Southwest · Verizon California · Verizon Florida · Verizon North · Verizon Northwest · Verizon South
Long Distance Services	Bell Atlantic Communications · NYNEX Long Distance
Wireless services	Verizon Wireless (55%)
Internet services	Verizon Online DSL · FiOS Internet
Video Services	FiOS TV
Other Assets	Empire City Subway
Annual Revenue: $75.1 billion USD ( FY 2005) · Employees: 216,704 · Stock Symbol: NYSE: VZ · Website: verizon.com

v • d • e United States telephone companies
ACS · AT&T · CenturyTel · Cincinnati Bell · Deltacom · Embarq · FairPoint · Frontier · GCI · Hawaiian Telcom · Iowa Telecom · PAETEC Holding Corp. · Puerto Rico Telephone · Qwest · Seaport Capital · TDS · Verizon · Windstream