) is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. but is incorporated in Delaware.
In 1984, the United States Department of Justice mandated AT&T Corporation to break up the Bell System into seven companies, each a Regional Bell Operating Company , commonly referred to as “Baby Bells”. One of the Baby Bells, Bell Atlantic, came into existence , consisting of the separate operating companies New Jersey Bell, Bell of Pennsylvania, Diamond State Telephone, and C&P Telephone, with a trading area from New Jersey to Virginia.
As part of a rebranding of the Baby Bells in the mid-1990s, all of Bell Atlantic’s operating companies assumed the holding company’s name. In 2000, Bell Atlantic acquired GTE, which operated telecommunications companies across most of the rest of the country that was not already in Bell Atlantic’s footprint.
