A bellwether for the industry, Verizon Communications was added to the Dow Jones Industrial Average in 2004. Verizon continues to have a nationwide presence in wireline and wireless markets, with approximately more than 100 million Americans connecting to a Verizon network daily. With the addition of MCI, Inc., in 2006, Verizon is now also a leading provider of advanced communications and information technology solutions to large business and government customers worldwide

As of year-end 2007, Verizon's wireline network included more than 41 million wireline access lines and 8.2 million broadband connections nationwide. Over 1.2 billion phone calls and trillions of bits of data were being carried over this nationwide network on an average business day, with a reliability factor of more than 99.99 percent. Verizon's wireline network also included approximately 13 million miles of local, inter-city and long-distance fiber-optic systems -- more than enough to circle the Earth 520 times.

Meanwhile, Verizon Wireless owned and operated the nation's most reliable wireless network. By year-end 2007, Verizon Wireless served nearly 66 million customers in 49 of the top 50 U.S. markets. Verizon's wireless network is 100 percent digital, with more than 175 switching facilities nationwide.

In 2006 and 2007, Verizon invested a total of $34.6 billion to maintain, upgrade and expand its technology infrastructure. Verizon's strong cash flow from operating activities ($26.3 billion in 2007) has enabled the company to invest in growth areas - particularly broadband and wireless -- even as the company has reduced total debt significantly through the decade and maintained a healthy dividend.

In 2004, Verizon began major initiatives to bring next-generation broadband services (wireless EV-DO and fiber-optic-based FiOS services) to wireless and wireline customers in the U.S. By year-end 2007, an enhanced version of EV-DO (Rev. A) was available to more than 240 million Americans. For wireline customers, Verizon is the only major U.S. telecommunications company building an advanced, all-digital fiber-optic network, on a mass scale, all the way to customers' homes. From 2004 through 2010, the company plans to invest $22.9 billion -- or $18 billion net of copper network investment costs that would otherwise have been made -- to deploy Verizon's fiber network past approximately 18 million premises and attract up to 7 million FiOS Internet customers and more than 4 million FiOS TV customers.

At the same time that Verizon has made these significant strategic investments, the company has shed non-strategic assets and investments. For example, Verizon sold wireline access lines in Alabama, Missouri and Kentucky in 2002 and in Hawaii in 2005. More recently, in 2006, Verizon spun off its U.S. print and Internet yellow pages directories company to Verizon shareholders. The spin-off resulted in a new public company called Idearc Inc. (pronounced EYE-dee-ark). Verizon shareholders received one share of Idearc common stock for every 20 shares of Verizon common stock, and Idearc began trading on the NYSE as a separate company on Nov. 20.

Also in 2006, Verizon reached definitive agreements to sell its interests in telecommunications providers in the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Venezuela in three separate transactions to América Móvil, a wireless service provider throughout Latin America, and a company owned jointly by Teléfonos de México (Mexico's leading full-service telecommunications company) and América Móvil. The sale of Verizon Dominicana closed on Dec. 1, and the other transactions closed in early 2007.

In January 2007, Verizon announced that it would spin off wireline businesses in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, establishing a separate entity that would merge with FairPoint Communications, Inc., a telecommunications provider based in Charlotte, N.C. This transaction closed on March 31, 2008, and Verizon shareholders received one share of FairPoint common stock for every 53.0245 shares of Verizon common stock. Following this transaction, Verizon has U.S. wireline operations in 25 states and the District of Columbia.

The MCI Merger
On Feb. 14, 2005, Verizon announced that it had agreed to acquire MCI, in a move to enhance Verizon's ability to deliver the benefits of converged communications, information and entertainment across the country and around the world.

Qwest Communications later announced a separate bid for MCI, but in May 2005 the MCI Board endorsed an amended bid by Verizon. MCI shareholders approved the merger with Verizon in October 2005, and state, federal and international regulatory approvals were obtained by year-end 2005. The merger closed on Jan. 6, 2006, in a transaction valued at approximately $8.5 billion.

Current Statistics

Verizon Communications Inc. generated $93.5 billion in 2007 total consolidated operating revenues, and at year-end 2007 the company had nearly 235,000 employees, serving customers in more than 140 countries. Verizon currently operates two network-based business units: Verizon Wireless, operator of America's most reliable wireless network; and Wireline, including Verizon Telecom, which is deploying the most advanced wireline broadband and video network in America today, and Verizon Business, which includes many former MCI operations and serves medium and large businesses and government customers. Verizon's corporate headquarters is located at 140 West St. in Manhattan, and it has a major operations hub, the Verizon Center, at the former headquarters location of AT&T in Basking Ridge, N.J.

Current facts and figures about Verizon can be obtained at http://newscenter.verizon.com/kit/vcorp/factsheet.vtml and additional details about Verizon Wireless can be obtained at http://news.vzw.com/pdf/Verizon_Wireless_Press_Kit.pdf

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