Bell Atlantic Corp declined to comment on a report in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal that it is in talks with Nynex Corp that could lead to a merger of the two Baby Bells with adjacent territories covering the so-called BosWash corridor (Southern New England Telecommunications Corp has some of the eastern end). It is a matter of company policy not to comment on reports of business deals that have not yet been announced, said Bell Atlantic, a comment echoed by Nynex. The speculation reflects expectations that there will be a big enough liberalisation of US telecommunications under the bill that is still bogged down in the harmonisation procedure between the two houses of Congress that Baby Bells will be allowed to enter the long-distance business in competition with the Big Three, and that they will be allowed to acquire each other – something that was expressly forbidden under the rules covering their spin-off from AT&T Corp. The two companies know the extent to which they are able to work together because they have already merged their cellular operations. A merged company would have over $27,000m in annual turnover and $3,000m in profits, and access to over 36m homes and businesses from Maine to Virginia, which together generate or land about a third of all long-distance calls in the US.
