Verizon Pennsylvania, Inc., formerly Bell Telephone Company of Philadelphia, The Bell Telephone Company of Pennsylvania, and Bell Atlantic - Pennsylvania, Inc., who traded as Bell of Pennsylvania, is the Bell Operating Company serving most of Pennsylvania. In 1984, the Bell System Divestiture

Bell System divestiture

The Bell System divestiture, or the breakup of AT&T, was initiated by the filing in 1974 by the U.S. Department of Justice of an antitrust lawsuit against AT&T. The case, United States v...

 split Bell of Pennsylvania off into a Regional Bell Operating Company

Regional Bell Operating Company

The Regional Bell Operating Companies are the result of United States v. AT&T, the U.S. Department of Justice antitrust suit against the former American Telephone & Telegraph Company . On January 8, 1982, AT&T Corp. settled the suit and agreed to divest its local exchange service operating...

, along with the 21 other BOCs AT&T

AT&T

AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the largest provider of mobile telephony and fixed telephony in the United States, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services...

 had a majority stake in. On January 1, 1984, Bell of Pennsylvania became part of Bell Atlantic.

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

GTE

GTE Corporation, formerly General Telephone & Electronics Corporation was the largest independent telephone company in the United States during the days of the Bell System....

 merger, the corporation changed its name to Verizon, and so Bell of Pennsylvania once again changed its name, this time to Verizon Pennsylvania, Inc.

See also

• Verizon
• Bell System
  Bell System
  The Bell System was the American Bell Telephone Company and then, subsequently, AT&T led system which provided telephone services to much of the United States and Canada from 1877 to 1984, at various times as a monopoly. In 1984, the company was broken up into separate companies, by a U.S...
  
  
• Bell System Divestiture
  Bell System divestiture
  The Bell System divestiture, or the breakup of AT&T, was initiated by the filing in 1974 by the U.S. Department of Justice of an antitrust lawsuit against AT&T. The case, United States v...
  
  
• AT&T
  AT&T
  AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the largest provider of mobile telephony and fixed telephony in the United States, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services...