Verizon Pennsylvania LLC, formerly traded as Bell of Pennsylvania, is the

Bell Operating Company The Bell System was a system of telecommunication companies, led by the Bell Telephone Company and later by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), that dominated the telephone services industry in North America for over one hundre ...

serving most of Pennsylvania. The company was founded in 1879 as Bell Telephone Company of Philadelphia, owned by

National Bell Telephone Company The Bell Telephone Company, a common law joint stock company, was organized in Boston, Massachusetts, on July 9, 1877, by Alexander Graham Bell's father-in-law Gardiner Greene Hubbard, who also helped organize a sister company – the New Engla ...

, which later became American Bell. In 1899, the company became a subsidiary of

American Telephone and Telegraph Company AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile te ...

following its buyout of American Bell. The company is separate from

Verizon North Verizon North LLC is a Verizon operating company providing local telephone service to former GTE customers in Pennsylvania. History In 2010, when the original Verizon North, whose service region included Pennsylvania, was sold to Frontier Communi ...

, which consists of former GTE-owned assets in rural Pennsylvania.

History

The company was founded in 1879 to serve Philadelphia. In 1907, the company changed its name to The Bell Telephone Company of Pennsylvania, a name under which it began to expand. Bell Telephone Bldg Pittsburgh jeh

In 1918, the company embarked on a series of acquisitions enlarging its coverage area from Philadelphia to statewide. In 1918, it acquired Central District Telephone. In 1924, it acquired Pittsburgh and Allegheny Telephone. In 1925, Bell of Pennsylvania made a $1.84 million acquisition of telephone exchanges in Wayne, Lackawanna, Luzerne, Berks, Bucks, Montgomery, and Schuylkill counties from

Lehigh Telephone Lehigh may refer to: Places United States *Lehigh, Iowa *Lehigh, Kansas *Lehigh, Oklahoma *Lehigh, Barbour County, West Virginia *Lehigh, Wisconsin *Lehigh Acres, Florida *Lehigh Township (disambiguation) * Lehigh Valley, a region in eastern Penn ...

. It also acquired Tri-State Telephone and

Pennsylvania State Telephone Pennsylvania (; (Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, Mary ...

that year. In 1926, it acquired Strousburg and Bushkill Telephone and

Meadville Telephone Meadville may refer to: * Meadville, Mississippi * Meadville, Missouri * Meadville, Nebraska * Meadville, Pennsylvania, the largest U.S. city named Meadville ** Meadville Area Senior High School ** Meadville Medical Center * ''Meadville'' (alb ...

. In 1927, it acquired Home Telephone Company, Blairsville Telephone Company, Summerville Telephone Company, Brookville Telephone Company, and Huntington & Clearfield Telephone Company. In April 1930, The company acquired Lehigh Telephone. During 1930, it also exchanged assets with Cumberland Valley Telephone Company in Dauphin, Mifflin, and Cumberland Counties. In 1932 Bell acquired properties of Clinton Telephone, which operated in portions of Lycoming and Clinton Counties. In 1944, it acquired Keystone Telephone Company of Philadelphia for $13.4 million.Bell Telephone Co. of Pennsylvania
, ''Lehman Bros.''; accessed 2022.10.25.

Post-Divestiture

In 1984, the

Bell System Divestiture The breakup of the Bell System was mandated on January 8, 1982, by an agreed consent decree providing that AT&T Corporation would, as had been initially proposed by AT&T, relinquish control of the Bell Operating Companies, which had provided loc ...

split Bell of Pennsylvania off into a

Regional Bell Operating Company The Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOC) are the result of '' United States v. AT&T'', the U.S. Department of Justice antitrust suit against the former American Telephone & Telegraph Company (later known as AT&T Corp.). On January 8, 1 ...

, along with the 21 other BOCs AT&T had a majority stake in. On January 1, 1984, Bell of Pennsylvania became part of

Bell Atlantic Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas i ...

. Throughout the 1980s to the first half of the 1990s, Bell of Pennsylvania, also called Pennsylvania Bell, kept its traditional identity. In 1994, Bell Atlantic started rebranding all its companies to Bell Atlantic-(state), so Bell of Pennsylvania became Bell Atlantic - Pennsylvania, Inc. In 2000, after the Bell Atlantic- GTE merger, the corporation changed its name to

Verizon Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas ...

, and so Bell of Pennsylvania once again changed its name, this time to Verizon Pennsylvania, Inc. In 2012, Verizon created a

Delaware Delaware ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Maryland to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The state takes its name from the adjacent ...

limited liability company A limited liability company (LLC for short) is the US-specific form of a private limited company. It is a business structure that can combine the pass-through taxation of a partnership or sole proprietorship with the limited liability ...

named Verizon Pennsylvania LLC. Verizon Pennsylvania, Inc., a Pennsylvania corporation, was then legally merged into the Delaware-based LLC.Pennsylvania Secretary of State
/ref> The company's headquarters in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...

are shared with Verizon Delaware, an arrangement that has existed since the

Bell System The Bell System was a system of telecommunication companies, led by the Bell Telephone Company and later by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), that dominated the telephone services industry in North America for over one hundr ...

existed.

References

External links

Archive of Bell of Pennsylvania Intercept Messages
{{Bell System Telecommunications companies established in 1879 Bell System Verizon Communications Communications in Pennsylvania Telecommunications companies of the United States Companies based in Philadelphia

History

Post-Divestiture

See also

References

External links