It's all in the name game: present-day brands are a culmination of companies past.

Wireless Week, October, 2003 by Alleven, Monica

What's in a name? Companies spend heftily to come up with a new name and they're quick to ditch the old. Over the past 20 years, mergers and acquisitions, not to mention the dot-corn fiasco, meant many names were thrown to the wayside. Oldtimers will remember the likes of American Radio Telephone Service Inc., LIN Broadcasting Corp.

and Ameritech Mobile Communications Inc. But for newcomers, it may seem like it takes a double major in geography and history to connect the dots, with much of the consolidation occurring in just the past few years. Bell Atlantic Mobile, or BALM, was one of the old-time parents affiliated with the country's largest carrier, Verizon Wireless, with headquarters in New Jersey. But in the Northeast there also was Bell...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Premium Content Partnership | HighBeam Research provides an in-depth online archive library of reference works.