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Verizon CEO considering merger options [telecom]

Bloomberg News reported that Verizon Communications Inc. is considering merger possibilities to reset the course of the company given the fast-changing structure of the industry, and would be open to talks with Comcast Corp., Walt Disney Co. or CBS Corp., said Chief Executive Officer Lowell McAdam.

Verizon, the largest U.S. wireless carrier, is seeking new sources of growth as the mobile-phone business matures and its new media ventures take time to gain traction. As the company upgrades its infrastructure to provide fifth-generation, or 5G, services, Comcast's fiber assets in particular would help handle the surge in capacity demands. And McAdam would entertain deal talks with Comcast CEO Brian Roberts to achieve those goals, he said in an interview Tuesday at Bloomberg's New York headquarters.

full article at:

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Personal note:

Nothing was said about anti-trust concerns or the concentration of too much economic power into a single company, other than mergers are possible with Trump in the White House.

(Anyone remember that we broke up the old Bell System because it was too big, despite it being tightly regulated?)

Reply to
HAncock4
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"We" didn't break up the Bell System. Mutual fund managers did.

The former AT&T Corporation was the first company in American history whose stock was distributed so widely that, for practical purposes, nobody owned it. Think about it: if the widow across the street has ten shares, and the orphan across town has 10 shares, and that pattern is repeated across the country, then no one is in charge. The company was responsible only to itself, and so long as it paid a reliable dividend, it only had to deal with 51 rubber-stamp regulators. The corporation turned inward, and became the most vicious, inbred, and hidebound monopoly anyone had ever seen.

It wasn't until the rise of the mutual fund managers as a significant economic force (roughly, the 1970's) that enough AT&T stock was concentrated in their hands for them to demand significant change. Their choice was obvious: the other companies where they had investments were spending fortunes on long-distance charges, and they voted their pocketbooks, and forced the old-line management at AT&T to agree to the consent decree which created the Baby Bells and the oligopoly which now dominates the telecommunications world.

The rest is history.

Reply to
Bill Horne

Wasn't the breakup a result of a consent decree with the Justice Department, as a result of anti-trust action?

Reply to
Barry Margolin

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