08-22-2017, 10:34 PM
N-OS X-tasy! wrote:
[quote=Will Collier]
Verizon's suits keep dreaming that one day they will once again be The Phone Company, and people will just have to pay up.
Actually, it is AT&T that was The Phone Company. Verizon got its humble beginnings as long distance carrier MCI, IIRC.
Verizon was formed by several of the "baby Bells" being merged over time, not from MCI, etc. Verizon started with the merger of Bell Atlantic with NYNEX, which had been formed by merging NETel and NYTel a few years before. This happened in the late '90's. Later they acquired GTE and MCI in the following decade to provide service outside their original area.
AT&T is the former Southwestern Bell, they had acquired a number of the other baby Bells, Eventually they purchased the remnants of the original AT&T at about the same time as Verizon purchased MCI.