Verizon Communications

With an estimated 17 bllion dollars in assets, Verizon is exploring a sale or spin-off of the business unit to finance its expansion in wireless and high-speed Internet services.^[7]. News24 is operated by Media24 Digital, and is a full member of the Online Publishers Association (OPA). It had an operating revenue of $3.6 billion in 2004 and employs 7,300 nationwide.^[6]. It also hosts web sites for Sunday newspapers Rapport and City Press and a number of Media24 community newspapers. The web sites receives 17 million unique visitors a month. News24 also hosts Afrikaans web sites for Beeld, Die Burger, Volksblad, Sake and the Naspers Afrikaans portal website NetAfrikaans.com, making it the largest supplier of Afrikaans news content. The yellow page business for Verzion known as Superpages is a Texas-based sales, publishing and related services for 1,200 directory titles with a circulation of about 121 million copies in 41 states. Ananzi, MWeb, Moneymax and SuperSport, among others, have all chosen News24 as a preferred content partner.

Verizon calls this "FiOS Internet".^[5]. News24 is accessible via the web at www.news24.com, and on DStv Channel 59. Verizon recently began offering FTTP (Fiber to the Premises) to some subscribers. News24 is South Africa-based online news service providing information on current events and culture. Verizon provides DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) Internet service in many areas where it offers phone service. Verizon provides standard POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) service as well as VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) and Fiber line services.

The merger was completed January 6, 2006. 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. While it is the largest telecommunications company in the world, the bulk of Verizon's profitable business is concentrated in the eastern United States. However, the real benefit to Verizon is the acquisition of long-haul lines.

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. On February 14, 2005, Verizon agreed to acquire MCI, formerly WorldCom, after SBC Communications agreed to acquire AT&T just a few weeks earlier. In 2005, Verizon sold off GTE's former telephone operations in Hawaii to The Carlyle Group, This operation is now known as Hawaiian Telcom. In 2002, Verizon sold GTE's former telephone operations in 4 states: Missouri, Arkansas and Alabama operations were sold to CenturyTel, and Kentucky operations were sold to Alltel.

Verizon also owns 50% of Gibraltar NYNEX Communications and part of Vodafone Italia. (TELPRI). Verizon also serves international customers in the Dominican Republic through Verizon Dominicana, Venezuela through CANTV, and Puerto Rico through Telecomunicaciones de Puerto Rico, Inc. Due to the rigorous climate and high costs, GTE Alaska was sold to Alaska Power and Telephone Company rather than be merged with Verizon.

It also provides service to secondary markets (mostly from its acquisition of GTE) in:. The primary states that it provides service to include:. Verizon serves customers throughout much of the United States. As of 2003, it has more than 203,000 employees.

It also has more than 16 million long distance customers. Verizon shares were made a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average on April 8, 2004.^[4] Verizon currently has 140.3 million land lines in service. Note this section refers to land lines only, as Verizon Wireless operates nationwide.. Genuity was formerly the Internet division of GTE Corp and spun off in 2000.^[2] Level 3 Communications acquired the bankrupt ISP in 2002 for only $137 million; a bargain-basement price the $616 million that a pre-Bell Atlantic-merger GTE paid for Genuity (then BBN Planet) paid in 1997.^[3].

Verizon then became the majority owner (55%) of Verizon Wireless. 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 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 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. Verizon began trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under its new "VZ" symbol on Monday, July 3, 2000. Fractional shares resulting from the exchange of GTE stock into Verizon Communications shares were sold at a price of $55.00 per share. 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.

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 (ConTel). General Telephone and Electronics (GTE) was the largest of the "independent" telephone companies during the days of the Bell System.

parent company's merger with Verizon, before being dropped in 2002 in favor of Gibtelecom, although it is still used colloquially in Gibraltar. The NYNEX name was retained after the U.S. In Gibraltar, NYNEX 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.

NYNEX was created as one of the original Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs) in 1984 and it owned New York Telephone and New England Telephone. NYNEX was consolidated into this name by 1997. when it merged, it moved its corporate headquarters from Philadelphia to New York City. Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, and Virginia as well as Washington, DC.

states of New Jersey, New York. Until its then Chairman and CEO, Raymond Smith orchestrated its merger with NYNEX in 1996, Bell Atlantic operated in the U.S. Bell Atlantic's original roster of Operating Companies was Bell of Pennsylvania, New Jersey Bell, Diamond State, and Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Companies. The origins of this company began as Bell Atlantic, and was created as one of the original Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs) in 1984.

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. 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 had merged with another Regional Bell Operating Company, NYNEX, in 1997.

Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ) is a New York City-based Baby Bell formed when Bell Atlantic, one of the Regional Bell Operating Companies, bought GTE, formerly the largest independent local-exchange telephone company in the United States in 2000. Wisconsin. Washington. Texas.

South Carolina. Puerto Rico. Oregon. Ohio.

North Carolina. Nevada. Michigan. Indiana.

Illinois. Idaho. Florida. California.

West Virginia. Virginia. Vermont. Rhode Island.

Pennsylvania. New York. New Jersey. New Hampshire.

Massachusetts. Maryland. Maine. District of Columbia.

Delaware. northeastern Connecticut.