Verizon Communications

This not only renders the company, effectively, a regional phone company, but also forces it to pay usage fees to a long-haul carrier such as MCI to complete calls for its customers whenever those calls go outside the Verizon "footprint." That need is obviated by the MCI acquisition. Ernst & Young was named one of the 100 Best Companies (the highest among the big four) to work for by Fortune Magazine and was named one of the 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers in 2004 by Working Mothers magazine. While it is the largest telecommunications company in the world, the bulk of Verizon's profitable business is concentrated in the eastern United States. In May 2000, the consulting arm was sold to the French IT services company Cap Gemini for $11 billion in cash and stock, creating the new consulting firm of Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, which was later renamed Capgemini. However, the real benefit to Verizon is the acquisition of long-haul lines. The merger plans were abandoned in February 1998 due to client opposition, antitrust issues, cost problems and perceived difficulty of merging the two diverse companies and cultures. Media coverage has focused on several ways in which that acquisition, once completed, will 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. In October 1997, Ernst & Young announced plans to merge their global practices with KPMG to create the largest professional services organization in the world, coming on the heels of another mega-merger plan announced in September 1997 by Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand.

On February 14, 2005, Verizon agreed to acquire MCI, formerly WorldCom, after SBC Communications agreed to acquire AT&T just a few weeks earlier. Ernst & Young is the auditor for a largest number of major Fortune 1000 corporations, including AOL Time Warner, Wal-Mart, Amazon.com, Oracle, McDonalds, Google, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Coca-Cola, and Verizon. This service provided by Verizon is entitled "FiOS," and is planned to offer three package levels: 5 Mbit/s downstream / 2 Mbit/s upstream, 15 Mbit/s downstream /2 Mbit/s upstream, and 30 Mbit/s downstream / 5 Mbit/s upstream.^[2] Verizon is currently redirecting most of its local budget cash-flow into FTTP rollout, leaving little money for technician tools and vehicle maintenance. Ernst & Young was the first of the Big Four Auditors to formally and fully separate its systems integration and auditing practices. Verizon is currently in the process of deploying and testing FTTP (Fiber To The Premises) to some subscribers. The SEC and other members of the investment community began to raise increasing concerns about potential conflicts of interest between the consulting and auditing work. Note this section refers to land lines only, as Verizon Wireless operates nationwide. The partnership built up its consultancy arm heavily during the 1980s and 90s.

In 2005, Verizon sold off GTE's former telephone operations in Hawaii. In 1989, the number four merged with the then number five, Arthur Young, to create Ernst & Young. In 2002, Verizon sold GTE's former telephone operations in Missouri to CenturyTel. Whinney, Smith & Whinney had been closely allied with Ernst & Ernst since the 1940s, and in 1979 Whinney Murray, Ernst & Ernst, and Turquands Barton Mayhew joined together as Ernst & Whinney, creating the fourth largest accountancy firm in the world. Due to the rigorous climate and high costs, GTE Alaska was sold to Alaska Power and Telephone Company rather than be merged with Verizon. In 1965, Whinney, Smith & Whinney merged with Brown, Fleming & Murray to form a accounting and consultancy firm named Whinney Murray. It also provides service to secondary markets (mostly from its acquisition of GTE) in California, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin. In 1903, the firm of Ernst & Ernst was established in Cleveland by Alwin and Theodore Ernst and in 1906 Arthur Young & Company was set up in Chicago.

The states that it provides service to include northeastern Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and West Virginia. He was made a partner in 1859 and with his sons in the business it was renamed Whinney, Smith & Whinney in 1894. Verizon serves customers throughout much of the United States. In that year the company was joined by the American Frederick Whinney. As of 2003, it has more than 203,000 employees. The oldest originating company was founded in 1849 in England as Harding & Pullein. It also has more than 16 million long distance customers. The firm as we know it today is the result of a series of mergers of ancestor organizations.

Verizon shares were made a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average on April 8, 2004.^[1] Verizon currently has 140.3 million land lines in service. . Verizon then became the majority owner (55%) of Verizon Wireless. Ernst & Young is one of the Big Four auditors, and the third largest professional services firm in the world (after Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu and PricewaterhouseCoopers) in terms of revenue.[1] (2004). 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. This wireless joint venture received regulatory approval in six months, and the wireless joint venture began operations as Verizon Wireless on April 4, 2000, kicking off the new "Verizon" brand name.

wireless assets (Bell Atlantic Mobile (which was previously called Bell Atlantic-NYNEX Mobile by 1997), AirTouch Cellular, PrimeCo Personal Communications and AirTouch Paging). Meanwhile, on September 21, 1999, Bell Atlantic and London-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. 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 mergers that formed Verizon were among the largest mergers in United States business history, culminating in 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.

Its former Canadian subsidiaries have combined with the former Alberta Government Telephones (AGT) to create TELUS, the second largest telecommunications carrier in Canada. GTE operated in Canada via controlling interest in subsidiary companies such as BC TEL and Quebec Tel. GTE provided local telephone service in a large number of areas of the U.S. They also owned Automatic Electric, a telephone equipment supplier similar in many ways to Western Electric.

It would later merge with the second largest independent, Continental Telephone. General Telephone and Electronics (GTE) was the largest of the "independent" telephone companies during the days of the Bell System. NYNEX was consolidated into this name by 1997. when it merged, it moved to New York City as its main headquarters.

states of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, and Virginia as well as Washington, DC. Until its merger with NYNEX in 1996, Bell Atlantic operated in the U.S. Bell Atlantic meanwhile, was also created as one of the original RBOCs from the former Bell of Pennsylvania, New Jersey Bell, and Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Companies. The Nynex name was retained after the US parent company's merger with Verizon, before being dropped in 2002 in favor of Gibtelecom, although it is still used colloquially in Gibraltar.

In Gibraltar, it had a 50 per cent stake in a joint venture with the Government of Gibraltar, called Gibraltar Nynex Communications, also known as GNC or GibNynex. NYNEX also operated cable TV services in some parts of the UK, although these were later sold to Cable & Wireless, which subsequently sold these to NTL. The origins of this company began as NYNEX, and was created as one of the original Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs) in 1984 from New England Telephone & Telegraph and New York Telephone. .

The name is a portmanteau of the Latin word veritas (meaning truth) and the English word horizon. Prior to its transformation into Verizon, Bell Atlantic previously merged with another Bell Operating Company, NYNEX, in 1996. Verizon Communications With over 10 million customers worldwide, NYSE: VZ is a New York City-based Baby Bell formed by the merger of Bell Atlantic, a former Regional Bell operating company, and GTE, which was the largest independent local-exchange telephone company in the U.S., with presence in most all of the continental United States. For the Mobile Phone Provider, see Verizon Wireless..

Qwest. BellSouth. SBC Communications. MCI.

AT&T. Sprint Nextel Corporation.