Now that the merger of telephone companies Bell Atlantic Corp. and Nynex Corp. is official, little will change for federal customers of the two companies.
The new company, the nation's second-largest telephone company after AT&T Corp., does more than $267 million a year in federal business, most of it generated by Bell Atlantic. The company will retain the name Bell Atlantic, and the government division still will be called Bell Atlantic Federal Systems. Barbara Connor will remain its president.
The merger became official Friday after the Federal Communications Commission approved it. The deal previously had won approval from the Justice Department and other regulators.
The two Bell phone companies have been providing the public with local telephone services in a 13-state region of the mid-Atlantic and Northeast. The Federal Systems unit provides phone services to civilian and defense agencies and also offers them systems integration and other services, such as a recently announced contingency planning and disaster recovery service.
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