LAQUINTA, Calif.-Customers continue to flock to wireless communications, with Bell Atlantic Mobile announcing it added 874,000 wireless customers in the fourth quarter, bringing its total to 7.7 million customers.
The increase includes 452,000 subscribers Bell Atlantic recently acquired from Frontier Cellular as well as a record 363,000 net subscriber additions. The growth in the fourth quarter of 1999 represented a 20-percent increase from the same period last year, and helped the company reach 1 million subscribers for the year.
“Bell Atlantic Mobile’s reliable, high-capacity network and its innovative high-quality services and customer care are the foundation on which these stellar results were built,” said Ivan Seidenberg, chairman and chief executive officer of Bell Atlantic. “Bell Atlantic Mobile is more than ready for a landmark 2000, when it will combine with the U.S. wireless assets of GTE and Vodafone AirTouch plc into the premier wireless business in the United States.”
The U.S. Department of Justice cleared the Vodafone deal during the fourth quarter, subject to a consent decree that calls for the resolution of overlapping wireless properties. When the deal is completed, the new business will be the largest wireless company in the United States, with more than 22 million proportionate wireless customers and 3.5 million paging customers in markets covering more than 90 percent of the population.
