What was bell atlantic before

Larger than many competing companies nonetheless, Bell Atlantic took advantage of the buyer's market that the tough competition created; in June it acquired CompuShop Inc. The retail computer slump was marked by smaller companies' rapid entry into, and exit from, a market with high overhead costs. The entrance of big names such as Bell Atlantic, retail computer experts argued, could provide just the shot in the arm the market needed to take off. A year-and-a-half after divestiture, Bell Atlantic, along with its sibling RHCs and other companies, realized that convergence of telephone hardware and computer data processing was a huge business.

Over the next several years the RHCs repeatedly petitioned the Department of Justice for business waivers to become more competitive in not only the national but international telecommunications market. Back in July Bell Atlantic had requested the government waive a body of rules prohibiting the RHCs from supplying their own telephone hardware. Unable to provide equipment for its own Centrex system, Bell Atlantic stood to lose a huge federal government contract to competitors--nearly , Centrex lines coming up for bid.

Having already lost 48, Centrex lines due to restrictions of the past year, Bell Atlantic officials thought it was time to confront the issue. While profits remained strong in Bell Atlantic's local phone service, its Yellow Pages directory publishing division, due to a disagreement, would be competing with Reuben H.

Donnelly Corporation, its previous publisher. In the meantime, the long-distance market moved uncomfortably close to the RHCs' local turf. While this would seem to benefit the residential consumer, it did not; outside competitors cutting into RHC profits merely threatened the very profit margin that helped subsidize the cost of local service. Continuing to expand its unregulated businesses in spite of, or perhaps because of, line-of-business restrictions as outlined in the consent decree, in September Bell Atlantic acquired the real estate assets of Pitcairn Properties, Inc.

Bell Atlantic then had a firm position in the financial and real estate markets. The corporation also opted, if allowed, to begin planning its comparably efficient interconnection CEI system. By March Bell Atlantic filed its CEI plan asking for the provision of message storage, hoping to get a jump on offering enhanced services. Due to several regulatory restrictions, development of the service was halted. In July Bell Atlantic announced a restructuring plan, combining operations of basic telephone service and unregulated businesses under one newly-created position, chief operating officer COO.

The plan also called for all staff of separate Bell Atlantic telephone companies to report to their respective presidents.

In September of that year, Judge Greene ruled to uphold the manufacturing and long-distance restrictions on RHCs, while allowing only limited information services. The corporation alleged that the judge alluded to information discussed during the original consent decree settlement, which claimed that the Bell operating companies, pre-divestiture, had been accused of engaging in anticompetitive practices--remarks not relevant to the case at hand.

The tables turned rather quickly for Bell Atlantic. In January the company found itself, along with BellSouth, accused of misconduct in bidding attempts to win government contracts. Bell Atlantic disputed the charges entirely, claiming that the senator's report was inaccurate. Following that divestiture, the company purchased the European computer maintenance operations of Bell Canada Enterprises, Inc.

All services involved monthly surcharges for customers, as well as an hourly fee for videotex and a one-time user's fee for message storage. Bell Atlantic also acquired the assets of Dyn Service Network. A strong critic of consent decree restrictions on RHCs, Smith and Bell Atlantic were also active in helping establish international standards for telecommunications. A Bell Atlantic proposal to conduct a trial involving interstate phone traffic was rejected because it was not deemed a necessity, but rather an advanced, competitive service.

Bell Atlantic wanted to cut costs by using a central processor for state-to-state traffic rather than having separate facilities perform the same tasks, and thus held that the judge's decision was against the public interest. Bell Atlantic implemented another reorganization in , trimming its management staff by 1, through voluntary retirement and other incentive plans.

Significant parts of the restructuring included closing the Washington, D. Signaling System 7 SS7 , a high-speed information exchange system, was operating on more than 60 percent of Bell Atlantic's telephone lines. To compete in mobile communications, the company marketed an extremely lightweight cellular telephone; at the same time, Bell Atlantic Paging's customer base grew, with a 16 percent increase.

Or the F. An artful middle ground would award approval conditional on fixing up however many flaws the F. Then the company could be given an expedited review limited to those problems. That way Bell Atlantic would get into long distance promptly, as it deserves, and phone customers would get the competition they deserve. More important, the F. View on timesmachine. In addition, we provide prices at month-end for each year referenced.

Additionally, we provide additional external sources at the bottom of this page as Helpful Links. The ref-sheet shows you the Date and amount of Dividends paid and the price of Bell Atlantic stock when the dividend was paid.

The ref-sheet also shows you information on mergers stock split and spin-offs. We built the Ref-Sheet as a handy sheet to assist you when you are trying to find the effect of dividends on your cost basis calculations. Their basis in those shares was deemed to be