communications industry telecommunications founded april 4 2000 ; 16 years ago 2000 04 04 bedminster new jersey u.s. headquarters basking ridge new jersey united states number of locations 2 330 area served united states key people lowell mcadam ceo andrew davies cfo david small coo services mobile telephony parent verizon communications website www.verizonwireless.com footnotes references 1 2 3 verizon wireless legally named cellco partnership 4 often branded and referred to as verizon is a wholly owned subsidiary of verizon communications offering wireless telecommunications products and services . with 142.8 million subscribers as of july 2016 verizon wireless is the largest wireless telecommunications provider in the united states . 5 the company is headquartered in basking ridge new jersey . it was founded in 2000 as a joint venture of american telecommunications firm bell atlantic which would soon become verizon communications and british multinational telecommunications company vodafone . 6 verizon communications became sole owner in 2014 by buying vodafone s 45 percent stake in the company . 7 it operates a national 4g lte network covering about 98 percent of the u.s. population 8 which in december 2015 won or tied for top honors in each category of the rootmetrics rootscore reports . 9 verizon wireless offers mobile phone services through a variety of devices . 10 its lte in rural america program with 21 rural wireless carriers participating covers 2.7 million potential users in 169 rural counties . 11 verizon wireless announced in 2015 that it was developing a 5g or fifth generation network . 12 contents 1 history 2 network 2.1 radio frequency summary 3 rootmetrics rootscore awards 4 apps 5 products and services 5.1 wireless phone services 5.2 wireless home phone 5.3 mobile wi fi and broadband 6 lte in rural america 7 see also 8 references 9 external links history edit in september 1999 american phone company bell atlantic and u.k. based vodafone airtouch plc announced they would create a new wireless phone service joint venture valued at 70 billion . 13 the joint venture was being created as bell atlantic underwent a merger with gte corporation . in april 2000 the companies announced that the bell atlantic gte merger would take the name verizon and that the bell atlantic vodafone wireless unit would be called verizon wireless legally cellco partnership d b a verizon wireless . 14 verizon communications owned 55 percent of verizon wireless while vodafone retained 45 percent ownership . 6 regulators with the federal communications commission approved the bell atlantic gte merger june 16 2000 15 creating the largest wireless company in the u.s. 16 verizon wireless held this market position until cingular acquired at & t wireless services in 2004 . 17 throughout the 2000s verizon acquired several wireless phone companies and assets across the country including west virginia wireless in 2006 ; 18 ramcell in 2007 ; 19 rural cellular corporation 20 and surewest communications both in 2008 . 21 also in 2008 verizon struck a deal to buy alltel for 5.9 billion in equity while assuming 22.2 billion worth of debt . 22 23 the deal finalized january 9 2009 again making verizon wireless the country s biggest cellphone network . 22 as per the agreement verizon sold rural wireless properties across 18 states to at & t. those properties were in alabama arizona california colorado iowa kansas michigan minnesota montana nebraska nevada new mexico north dakota south dakota tennessee utah virginia and wyoming . 24 verizon s acquisitions continued in the 2010s including the purchases of some plateau wireless markets in 2012 25 and golden state cellular s operator in 2014 . 26 majority owner verizon communications became sole owner of its wireless business in 2014 when it bought vodafone s 45 percent stake . vodafone received 58.9 billion cash 60.2 billion in stock and 11 billion in other transactions . 7 27 an article in the new york times estimated verizon wireless valuation at about 290 billion . 7 in late 2014 it became known that verizon wireless uses deep packet inspection for server side insertion of a customer unique id field x uidh into all unencrypted http headers . the mechanism has been referred to as supercookie or perma cookie although it is not technically a cookie in that it does not store information on the customers device and is transparent to the user . it can not be averted with common mechanisms like ad blockers ; however it can not be inserted into encrypted https and vpn connections . verizon advertises the system to marketing partners . the electronic frontier foundation has called on verizon to terminate the program calling it a profound violation of trust expressing concern over abuse by third parties and questioning the legality of verizon modifying their users outgoing data without offering them the possibility of a full opt out . 28 29 30 31 32 in january 2015 verizon announced they would give customers the option of opting out and as of april 1 2015 verizon now allows customers to opt out either online or calling a special phone number . 33 in september 2016 comcast confirmed that it planned to launch a mobile service using verizon s network as an mvno in mid 2017 . 34 35 network edit verizon wireless operates a 4g lte network which as of january 2016 covers about 98 percent of the u.s. 36 before their lte network was launched they operated an exclusively cdma2000 network the other major cdma2000 carrier in the us being sprint . verizon began its initial tests for the 4g lte network in 2008 12 in order to move from older generation mobile communications technologies to the emerging global standard . 37 in december 2010 verizon wireless launched a fledgling 4g lte network in 39 markets . 38 by december 2011 only a year after launch 200 million americans were covered with 4g lte and 190 markets were covered . 39 as of 2016 98 % percent of the u.s. is covered with lte and 92 % of all data traffic is on lte . 40 in 2012 the service provider bought spectrum from the country s biggest cable companies including comcast time warner cable and bright house networks to improve its data network across the u.s. 41 the new capacity allowed verizon to launch what it calls xlte lte on band 4 in 2013 providing more capacity in congested and well populated markets . 42 because 4g lte is a data transmitting network when it launched verizon customers voice calls were still carried over the company s cdma2000 network 43 which was developed for 3g cellphones . in september 2014 verizon launched voice over lte volte ; 44 this allowed voice calls to transmit via the data only lte network . this also allows for simultaneous voice and data services something that is unavailable on traditional cdma2000 calls . along with volte verizon also announced support for hd voice which provides higher quality audio for volte calls and native video calling for android phones . in march 2016 verizon enabled support for wi fi calling which allows calls to be placed over a wi fi network . as of august 2015 nearly 4 million of verizon s 103.7 million subscribers used volte . 44 a report by rootmetrics on carrier performance in the first half of 2015 ranked verizon s network as the best in overall national performance network reliability network speed data performance and call performance . 45 for the second half of 2015 rootmetrics s rootscore report ranked verizon wireless no. 1 in overall performance network speed network reliability call performance and data performance . 9 verizon wireless and at & t tied for first in text performance . 9 in september 2015 verizon s chief information and technology architect roger gurnani stated that verizon was planning to trial a 5g wireless network within 12 months with some level of commercial deployment by 2017 . 12 in late august 2016 verizon officially announced that it had rolled out lte advanced services in 461 markets . the company promoted that the technology would allow at least 50 % higher lte data speeds on supported devices . 46 radio frequency summary edit further information umts frequency bands and lte frequency bands the following is a list of known 3g and lte frequencies which verizon employs in the united states frequencies used on the verizon network frequency band band number protocol class status notes 850 mhz 0 1xrtt ev do ehrpd 3g active currently retaining the cdma2000 network for 3g voice calls and data with plans to shut down the network by december 31 2019 . 47 1900 mhz pcs 1 1xrtt ev do ehrpd 3g reallocating to 4g 48 currently reallocating from 3g to 4g lte in markets where additional lte capacity is needed ; will be completed by the end of 2019 . 1900 mhz pcs 2 lte 4g being deployed 49 700 mhz block c 13 lte 4g active main lte band completed deployment mid 2013 . 50 1700 2100 mhz aws 4 lte 4g active branded as xlte 51 additional band for increased bandwidth in major markets . rolling out to new markets as needed . currently rolled out to over 461 markets . a panoramic view within a verizon wireless store norwalk connecticut 2012 . rootmetrics rootscore awards edit verizon has historically done well on rootmetrics rootscore reports . 52 rootmetrics us national rootscore reports 53 report date overall performance rank call performance rank text performance rank data performance rank network speed rank network reliability rank second half 2013 1 1 1 1 2 1 at & t 1 first half 2014 1 1 2 1 at & t 1 1 1 second half 2014 1 1 3 1 at & t 2 sprint 1 1 1 first half 2015 1 1 2 1 at & t 1 1 1 second half 2015 1 1 1 tied 1 at & t 1 1 1 first half 2016 1 1 1 1 1 1 apps edit verizon wireless offers certain applications and services that are exclusive to its subscribers . many of these apps are pre loaded on verizon devices primarily android smartphones . the company has received criticism for this practice as users and critics have viewed the applications to be bloatware that are sometimes redundant to applications already included with the device s operating system . 54 55 56 the nfl mobile app allows verizon wireless subscribers to stream national football league games and nfl network on their devices . while previously a subscription based service nfl mobile was made free to all subscribers beginning in the 2015 nfl season . as part of an exclusivity agreement with the nfl only verizon wireless subscribers may stream nfl telecasts to smartphones . 57 58 59 as part of a similar deal that also granted the carrier title sponsorship of the series verizon also has exclusivity on phone streaming of verizon indycar series races via its official app . 60 the my verizon app is used for account management including checking usage statistics and managing the user s service plan and account features . 61 62 63 verizon cloud which allows photos videos contacts messages and call logs to be synchronized online was released in april 2013 initially for android phones 64 followed the next month by a launch for ios . 64 65 65 verizon messages is an alternate text messaging app that additionally allows messages to be synchronized between multiple devices . 66 vz navigator is a subscription based maps and navigation service which provides turn by turn navigation crowdsourced traffic data weather events and entertainment listings gas prices roadside assistance 2d and 3d views . 67 the verizon support & protection app provides technical support services lost device location and on android antivirus functionality . 68 verizon family locator is a subscription based service and app can be used to track the locations