Competing in the telecommunications industry is increasingly a world game. Rapid scientific advances are increasing communications speed and blurring the distinction between information technologies and communications technologies --computer companies are in the communication business, and telephone companies are selling systems integration. The old-fashioned Phone Company –once a monopoly in the United States and a government ministry elsewhere – is now subject to forces of competition, through changing regulation or privatization.
Few industries as old have been transformed so dramatically in such a short time, and further transformations are on the horizon. The U.S. edge in the telecommunications sector may well depend on the skill with which change – human, organizational, and technological — is managed.
Bell Atlantic Corporation was formed in 1983, in preparation for the breakup of the Bell System telephone monopoly on January 1,1984. It was one of seven U.S. regional telecommunications holding companies (sometimes called “baby Bells”) created when AT&T was required by judicial decree to divest its local telephone operations, ushering in the era of greater competition.
Bell Atlantic began with a charter to provide local telephone service in six mid-Atlantic states and the District of Columbia. A decade later, Bell Atlantic was introducing new products and services at a rapid clip, starting ventures and forming alliances throughout the world, and pursuing leadership in the information technology industry of the future.