History
Verizon Wireless traces its roots to Bell Atlantic Mobile, NYNEX Mobile Communications, AirTouch Communications, PrimeCo Communications, and GTE Mobilnet. Bell Atlantic Mobile and NYNEX Mobile Communications merged in 1995 to create Bell Atlantic – NYNEX Mobile, and their wireless subsidiary was renamed Bell Atlantic Mobile. Bell Atlantic Mobile and NYNEX Mobile Communications were created from Advanced Mobile Phone Service, Inc., which was a subsidiary of AT&T created in 1978 to provide cellular service nationwide. AMPS, Inc. was divided among the RBOCs as part of the Bell System Divestiture.
Meanwhile, in June 1999, AirTouch Communications of San Francisco merged with UK-based Vodafone Group Plc, forming Vodafone AirTouch Plc. In September 1999, Vodafone AirTouch announced a $90-billion joint venture with Bell Atlantic Corp. to be called Verizon Wireless, and which would comprise the two companies' U.S. wireless assets: Bell Atlantic Mobile and AirTouch Paging. This wireless joint venture received regulatory approval in six months, and began operations as Verizon Wireless on April 4, 2000. The name "Verizon" itself, a portmanteau, was derived by combining the word "veritas," a Latin term that means "truth," and the word "horizon." Together, they are supposed to conjure images of reliability, certainty, leadership, and limitless possibilities.
On June 30, 2000, the addition of GTE Wireless' assets, in connection with the merger of Bell Atlantic and GTE to form Verizon Communications, made Verizon Wireless the nation's largest wireless communications provider. Verizon held that position until Cingular's acquisition of AT&T Wireless in 2004, and again after their acquisition of Alltel in 2009. For the joint venture, Verizon Communications owns 55%, which is held through its subsidiaries Bell Atlantic Mobile Systems LLC and GTE Wireless, Inc., which hold 24.2% and 30.8% respectively, and UK-based Vodafone Group (formerly Vodafone AirTouch) owns 45% through its subsidiaries PCS Nucleus, L.P. and JV PartnerCo, LLC which owns 6.2% and 38.8% respectively.
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Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“The only history is a mere question of one’s struggle inside oneself. But that is the joy of it. One need neither discover Americas nor conquer nations, and yet one has as great a work as Columbus or Alexander, to do.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)