The collapse of its agreement to acquire Tele-Communications Inc has not put ambitious Bell Atlantic Corp off the idea of big deals, and rather than squeal about AT&T Corp’s still-pending acquisition of McCaw Cellular Communications Inc, it has decided to challenge the market leader in the most populous part of the US by merging its cellular subsidiary with that of sibling Baby Bell Nynex Corp – regulators permitting. When cellular franchises were parcelled out, one of the two licensed for each market went to the resident local phone company. In the early days, the Baby Bells were regarded as bureaucratic pussycats by the likes of freebooting McCaw, but those days are long gone, and the aim of the new venture is to bid noisily for as many of the new Personal Communications Services licences as they can get so as to build a coast-to-coast mobile network. Under the agreement, Bell Atlantic would initially own 62.35% of the joint venture and Nynex 37.65%, and they hope to have it wrapped up by second quarter 1995. Management will be controlled equally by the two companies and the two have established a management operations committee to decide how to best integrate the operations. The two have been partners on one of the systems in the New York metropolitan area for 10 years, so know about working together, and the combined system will extend from Maine to South Carolina, including the entire BosWash megalopolis, and like-minded partners will be sought in other regions to extend the network south and west, although it will also include Bell Atlantic’s properties in the southwest. The combined company will have revenues of $1,200m and 1.8m subscribers, and its service area will be comparable in size to the entire UK market, covering 55m people, and it will have operations in seven of the top 20 US markets.
