Verizon to Valor

New Mexico Business Journal, Sept, 2000

In New Mexico, Verizon Communications (the new name of the merged GTE and Bell Atlantic) has sold its 97,000 access lines to Valor Telecom (the new company run by Anne Bingaman with numerous New Mexico investors) and is no longer doing local telecom business in the Land of Enchantment. It also sold some 326,000 Texas access lines to Valor, but is hanging onto another 1 .7 million lines, which keeps it the No.

2 provider of dialtone in Texas. Valor is No. 2 in New Mexico, after Quest (once known as US West). It is serving customers in communities from Abiquiu to White Mountain. The 423 Verizon employees in New Mexico and Texas are now Valor employees.