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Since its inception more than 120 years ago, Verizon has gone through numerous evolutions.
The company evolved from the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), which was formed in 1885. From 1927 to 1984, the firm was incorporated as New Jersey Bell Telephone Company and was a subsidiary of AT&T.
In 1929, New Jersey Bell (NJB) moved into its new headquarters at 540 Broad Street in Newark, New Jersey. Today the company still calls Broad Street its home. On January 1, 1984, when the federal court-ordered divestiture of AT&T took effect, NJB became a wholly owned operating company of Bell Atlantic Corporation, one of the seven so-called "Baby Bell" holding companies. The company continued to use the name New Jersey Bell until 1994, when it was changed to Bell Atlantic-New Jersey (BA-NJ).
In August 1997, Bell Atlantic acquired Nynex, creating the second largest telephone company in the United States. In 1998, Bell Atlantic announced its plan to merge with GTE. On April 3, 2000, Bell Atlantic and GTE selected "Verizon" as the new name of the combined company. On June 30, 2000, Bell Atlantic and GTE completed their merger, creating Verizon Communications, a formidable new competitor in global communications.
On Feb. 14, 2005, Verizon announced that it had agreed to acquire
MCI. MCI shareholders approved the merger with Verizon on Oct. 6,
and state, federal and international regulatory approvals were obtained
by year-end 2005. The merger closed on Jan. 6, 2006, in a transaction
valued at approximately $8.5 billion. "Verizon Business" is named
as a new business unit, which encompasses business and government
customers and related functions of the former MCI as well as similar
businesses that previously were part of Domestic Telecom, including the
former Verizon Enterprise Solutions Group.
On October 18, 2006, Verizon announced that its Board of Directors
approved the proposed spin-off of Verizon's U.S. print and Internet
yellow pages directory company. The spin-off will result in a new
public company called Idearc Inc. (pronounced EYE-dee-ark).
To learn more details, about the company's history, select a category from the right.
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