USA - Major Telcos - Statistics and Analysis

Synopsis

Archived report: this report was archived in December 2010 and has not been updated.

The US telecommunications sector witnessed further significant consolidation between 2005 and 2007, first with Verizon’s acquisition of MCI, then SBC Corporation’s acquisition of AT&T Corp, rebranded AT&T Inc, and finally AT&T’s acquisition of BellSouth. The mergers were largely a strategic response to the increased competition from new technologies which were eroding traditional fixed-line telephone revenues.

Competition from wireless voice and data providers such as Sprint Nextel continued to intensify as wireless usage grew. More recently, VoIP had become a significant competitor, being offered by the cable MSOs as well as by pureplay providers such as Vonage and Skype. The telcos were responding not only by merging, but by deploying fibre optic deeper into their networks in order to offer a triple play bundle of video, broadband and voice services. More recently however, they appeared to be focusing their resources on their mobile businesses, largely for their 3G and 4G mobile network upgrades.

This report provides a brief overview of the major US telecommunication companies, followed by separate snapshots of the three major fixed-line operators AT&T, Verizon and Qwest, as at 2010.