Ivan
G. Seidenberg , Chairman and
Chief Executive Officer of
Verizon. Television International
Magazine's "Person of the Month"
-- March - 2010.
•••
Ivan G. Seidenberg, who started
at the bottom of the
telecommunications industry and
worked his way to the top,
transformed Verizon into a leader
in both the traditional phone
market and into the wireless
industry. The company's history
can be traced back to the breakup
of AT&T in the mid-1980s,
when the Baby Bells were
born. •
Originally
there were seven Baby Bells, but
they ultimately merged into four
giants, including Verizon (formed
in 2000 when Bell Atlantic merged
with GTE), SBC, BellSouth
Corporation, and Qwest
Communications International.
These companies controlled the
local phone service market and
were even awarded free radio •
Both
the FCC and NBS1908, scored big
in Airwave the Wireless
Telephone™ specrum auction
-- March 21, 2008, thet
just-concluded. The auction
covers licenses to transmit and
receive electronic signals of
different frequencies in various
regions.
The nation's two largest wireless
companies emerged as the biggest
winners in a record-setting
auction of public airwaves,
increasing the odds that they
will continue to dominate that
market for years to come.-
•
CONTINUED
Continued02
/ 4.
More TimeLine /
TVI Magazine is
not responsible for the content of
external InterNet sites •
2003
-
(BusinessWeek,
August 4, 2003). In the spring of 2002
Seidenberg's wait was over, and he became
the sole CEO of Verizon. But he was never
in a position to rest on his laurels. The
rapidly consolidating telecom business
faced a new threat: cable. David N.
Watson, executive vice president for
marketing at Comcast, the nation's cable
leader at the time, said, "Phone companies
would have to make hefty investments to
catch up. And we won't be standing still"
(BusinessWeek, August 4, 2003). •
2003
-
(BusinessWeek,
August 4, 2003). As Verizon continued to
lose traditional customers, Seiden-berg
remained focused on transforming the
industry. In 2003 Verizon became the first
Baby Bell to offer the now ubiquitous
flat-rate plans that offered unlimited
long-distance and local calls. Not long
after, every other Baby Bell introduced
its own plan. Said Seidenberg, "When
you're the market leader, part of your
responsibility is to reinvent the
market" •
2003
-
(BusinessWeek,
August 4, 2003). Seidenberg's biggest move
by far was his aggressive push into the
broadband market. According to him, the
age-old telecom model was completely
obsolete. The future relied on what he
called a "broadband industry" that offered
consumers video and voice features with
the potential of transforming the way
various demographics accomplished everyday
tasks. For example, high school students
could use the technology to download a
missed algebra class while doctors could
use state-of-the-art videoconferencing to
communicate with patients in rural areas.
Said Seidenberg, "The cable industry
focuses on entertainment and games. The
broadband industry will focus on
education, health care, financial
services, and essential government
services. I think over the next five to 10
years, you will see five, six, seven
[segments of the economy]
reordering the way they think about
providing services" (BusinessWeek, August
4, 2003). •
2004
- On January
1, 2004 Ivan G. Seidenberg, became
Verizon's Chairman of the Board having
served as Verizon's sole CEO since April
1, 2002 after serving as co-CEO. •
2004
- Verizon
remained the biggest of all the Baby
Bells. In 2004 it led the local
market&emdash;dominating the Northeast
with 35 million local phone customers,
more than any other telecom&emdash;and was
the number two long-distance provider,
behind AT&T. Verizon boasted 2003
sales of $68 billion and a market
capitalization of nearly $100 billion. •
2004
- Verizon
Wireless, the company's joint venture with
Vodafone, was the number one U.S. wireless
provider. As for the future, Seiden-berg
bet on broadband. Hoping to thwart attacks
from cable companies, Seidenberg fought
back on broadband, investing heavily on
the belief that customers would pay to
bring the technology into their
households. •
2004
- (Wall Street
Journal, May 28, 2004). At Verizon each of
the wholesale orders traditionally took
about an hour. The orders arrived by fax,
and then employees manually entered the
details into the company's systems. Next
they would send the orders back so that
customers could check them for accuracy.
That route, which was repeated thousands
of times a year, was eliminated. In its
place was a more direct process in which
Verizon allowed its customers to access
its computer directly and place the orders
themselves. Said Tom Maguire, who oversaw
Verizon's wholesale operations, "It's
cheaper to get a machine. Machines don't
call in sick and are consistent in
quality" (Wall Street Journal, May 28,
2004). As a result of the change, Verizon
was processing more than 92 percent of its
orders automatically through proprietary
software it had developed. The system was
so easy to use that Verizon was able to
train several temporary workers, whom they
hired because of a threatened strike, to
use it in a week and a half. Training the
old way took more than a year. •
2004
- (Fortune, May
31, 2004). As for the Bell Atlantic merger
with GTE, Seidenberg became co-CEO with
Charles R. Lee of GTE. In both cases, an
agreement was struck that would guarantee
Seidenberg the top position within a
specified period of time after the deals
were finished. Commenting upon his
decision, Seidenberg said, "Sharing
responsibility for a three-, four-, or
five-year period in the history of the
world was not a big deal" (Fortune, May
31, 2004). •
2004
- (Fortune, May
31, 2004). As for the Bell Atlantic merger
with GTE, Seidenberg became co-CEO with
Charles R. Lee of GTE. In both cases, an
agreement was struck that would guarantee
Seidenberg the top position within a
specified period of time after the deals
were finished. Commenting upon his
decision, Seidenberg said, "Sharing
responsibility for a three-, four-, or
five-year period in the history of the
world was not a big deal" (Fortune, May
31, 2004). •
2004
- In 2004
Verizon Wireless was the nation's number
one wireless provider with more than 26
million mobile phone customers nationwide.
Verizon's investments in the technology
continued in 2003 as the company outfitted
the Manhattan section of New York City
with more than one thousand wireless
fidelity hotspots.
•••
These allowed
broadband subscribers near a Verizon
telephone booth to access the Internet
wirelessly with their laptops. Another
project on the horizon was 3G, which would
allow customers to make speedy online
connections using their mobile phones. By
2004 wireless accounted for 33 percent of
Verizon's total revenues, and Seidenberg
planned to invest an additional $5 billion
into the technology.
ual survival and help us find a new model
that will help us preserve jobs and
compete in the marketplace" •
2004
- (Fortune, May
31, 2004). THE FUTURE OF
WiFi187.•In
2004 Seidenberg backed up his vision of
the future by announcing a
multibillion-dollar initiative to bring
high-speed fiber lines into millions of
customers' homes. Those lines could one
day carry television programs, allowing
Verizon to compete with cable companies.
At the January 2004 Consumer Electronics
Show, Seidenberg declared that his
investment would be the start of the
"all-broadband, all-the-time lifestyle"
(Fortune, May 31, 2004). •
2004
- (Fortune, May
31, 2004).
.
More. In the first
stage of his initiative, Seidenberg
planned to bring fiber to one million
homes by the end of 2004, an ambitious
project that would cost $1 billion -- more
than 8 percent of the company's total
capital expenditure budget for that year.
He hoped to have another two million homes
wired by 2005. Some analysts calculated
that outfitting the homes of Verizon's
other 32 million customers with fiber
would cost $40 billion. Some called
Seidenberg's plan nothing more than a
bluff. Said Susan Kalla, a telecom analyst
at Friedman Billings Ramsey, "He's not
going to do it. The numbers, they just
don't make sense" (Fortune, May 31,
2004). •
2004
- (Fortune, May
31,
2004).
A POKER PLAYER?
Seidenberg contended that he was planning
to move slowly at first, to test his
strategy. As for investors' concerns, he
was not really worried: "Most investors
only understand that which has already
been done. They never really like things
that haven't been done before.
•••
That's why
Christopher Columbus had so much trouble
getting financing" (Fortune, May 31,
2004). Verizon also made a push into the
corporate market, building a national
network that could accommodate the vast
numbers of bits and bytes on which
corporations rely to communicate with
their disparate offices. The company
expected the new services to generate $250
million per year; it hoped to increase
that figure to $1 billion by 2007. •
2004
- (Fortune, May
31,
2004).
More. One immediate
focus was the company's wholesale
business, in which it leased its lines at
reduced rates to other companies that
wanted to offer local phone service. Baby
Bells were once accused of stalling this
process -- after all, they would rather
sell the service themselves -- but in a
new regulatory arena, they faced fines if
they did not meet requirements for fair
and speedy access.
•••Seidenberg's
leadership style was a study in paradoxes.
He was known for his soothing, persuasive
voice that came in handy during those
times when he had to sell employees and
investors on his seemingly quixotic
strategies. Yet he could also be
incredibly abrupt. A mutual fund investor,
who remained anonymous, recalled
Seidenberg's answer to the question from
another investor about whether the company
would acquire the long-distance company
Sprint:
•••
"Real
condescendingly, he responded that he
didn't know why he even bothered to answer
these types of questions. This was an
investor who owned something like six
million shares in the company. I always
wondered what he did with them the
following Monday" (Fortune, May 31,
2004). •
2005
- April 10,
2005 / Verizon Communications Inc. said
Saturday it was paying $1.1 billion to
acquire a 13.4% stake in MCI Inc. directly
from its largest single stockholder.
•••The
transaction removes a major wild card in
Verizon's bid to fend off a higher-priced
offer to acquire MCI by Qwest
Communications International Inc. of
Denver. CLICK
FOR MORE
STORY
•••The
New York telephone company is paying
$25.72 per share in cash to Mexican
billionaire Carlos Slim Helu, who had
previously expressed dissatisfaction with
offers from Verizon and Qwest. The deal
values Slim's 43.4 million shares at an
11% premium to the $23.10 per share
Verizon agreed to pay MCI's other
shareholders two weeks ago in a sweetened
$7.5-billion deal. •
2006
- In 2006 Mr.
Seidenberg donated $15 million dollars to
Pace University. Pace's School of Computer
Science and Information Systems was
officially renamed the Ivan G. Seidenberg
School of Computer Science and Information
Systems. •
2005
- Verizon CEO
sounds off on Wi-Fi, customer gripes /
Seidenberg also explains phone company's
reasons for wanting to buy MCI / Todd
Wallack, Chronicle Staff Writer /
Saturday, April 16, 2005. SEE
MORE
BELOW •
2007
- June 8, 2007
- The White House announced today that
President Bush intends to appoint three
communications executives to the
President's National Security
Telecommunications Advisory Committee
(NSTAC).
•••According
to the July 11 White House release, the
President plans to appoint Ivan G.
Seidenberg, Chairman and Chief Executive
Officer of Verizon; Mike S. Zafirovski,
President and Chief Executive Officer of
Nortel; and Kyle E. McSlarrow, President
and Chief Executive Officer of the
National Cable and Telecommunications
Association (NCTA) to the advisory
committee.
•••Composed
of up to 30 industry chief executives
representing the major communications,
information technology, finance, and
aerospace companies, NSTAC provides
industry-based advice and expertise to the
President on issues and problems related
to implementing national security and
emergency preparedness (NS/EP)
communications policy. For 25 years, NSTAC
has addressed a wide range of policy and
technical issues regarding communications,
information systems, information
assurance, critical infrastructure
protection, and other NS/EP communications
concerns. •
2007
- Ivan Seidenberg, the chief executive
of Verizon Communications Inc., received
$20.3 million in compensation in 2007, up
slightly from $20.2 million the year
before, according to a regulatory filing
Monday. •
2007
- Seidenberg's $20.3 million
compensation in 2007 included perks worth
$825,312, including $149,023 in personal
use of a company aircraft, and $431,395 in
contributions to a deferred-savings
plan.
•••http://www.verizon.com •
2006
- Seidenberg's bonus was $4.2 million,
down $52,500 from 2006. His stock award
was virtually the same as in 2006, about
$13.1 million, and his salary remained
$2.1 million. •
2007
- The New York-based
telecommunications company's stock rose
17.3 percent in 2007, as Wall Street
started to overcome its skepticism about
the company's expensive plan to make
fiber-optic connections available to most
customers in its local-phone service area.
However, the stock has lost all those
gains and more in 2008, closing at $34.61
Monday, about 7 percent below the 2006
year-end close.
•••Verizon's
board noted that the company met or
exceeded the targets on which it bases
executive compensation, including earnings
per share for the
year. •
2008
- Verizon is one of the few major
companies that have decided to give
shareholders a voice on executive
compensation. At the annual meeting next
year, shareholders will vote on whether
the 2008 compensation package is
reasonable. The vote will be not binding,
but a "no" result could be embarrassing to
the company.
•••Shareholders
last year voted by a slim margin to accept
a nonbinding proposal put forward by The
Association of BellTel Retirees to
institute such a
vote.
•••The
Associated Press calculations of total pay
include executives' salary, bonus,
incentives, perks, above-market returns on
deferred compensation and the estimated
value of stock options and awards granted
during the
year.
•••The
calculations don't include changes in the
present value of pension benefits, and
they sometimes differ from the totals
companies list in the summary compensation
table of proxy statements filed with the
Securities and Exchange Commission. •
2008
-
As chairman and
chief executive officer of Verizon
Communications Inc., formerly Bell
Atlantic and previously NYNEX, Seidenberg
steered those companies through two of the
largest telecommunications mergers in
history: Recap tviNews•
1997
- the merger of
Bell Atlantic and NYNEX in 1997;
•
1999
- Ivan led
efforts in September 1999 to form Verizon
Wireless, the nation's largest (at the
time) wireless communications business
composed of the wireless assets of Bell
Atlantic, GTE and Vodafone Airtouch.
•
2000
- the Bell
Atlantic merger with GTE in 2000;
•
20050-06
- In 2005, Mr.
Seidenberg's total compensation was $19.4m
and in 2006 it was estimated at
$23.6m.
•••Seidenberg
began his career in telecommunications as
a lineman's assistant straight from high
school, and is one of the few Fortune 500
CEOs to have worked his way from the very
bottom to the very top. He served a tour
of duty in the Vietnam War as a tail
gunner. He studied part-time and is a
graduate of Lehman College of the City
University of New York (1972), earning a
B.A. in mathematics, and received his MBA
in Marketing from Pace University
(1981). •
2008
- FCC and
NBS1908, score in Airwave Auction -- March
21, 2008
/
The just-concluded
auction covers licenses to transmit and
receive electronic signals of different
frequencies in various regions.
The nation's two largest wireless
companies emerged as the biggest winners
in a record-setting auction of public
airwaves, increasing the odds that they
will continue to dominate that market for
years to come. •
2008
- Verizon
Wireless agreed to pay more than $9
billion of the $19 billion raised for
government coffers and got the largest
chunks of the spectrum, which it is
expected to use for such high-volume
transmissions as video and corporate
data.
•
• AT&T
Inc., the only carrier larger than
Verizon, will pay more than $6 billion for
new slices of the spectrum, according to
figures released Thursday by the Federal
Communications Commission. It won licenses
to use smaller parts of the airwaves, but
AT&T noted that it recently bought
$2.5 billion worth of more-valuable
spectrum in a private sale. •
2008
- AT&T and
Verizon co-owner Verizon Communications
Inc. already offer DSL
service.
No. 3 carrier
Sprint Nextel Corp., which sat out the
process, has been beset by technological
challenges, subscriber defections and
management turnover. •
2008
- A surprise
winner for another block of the spectrum
was satellite television company EchoStar
Communications Corp. It spent more than
$700 million for spectrum that reaches
across almost the entire U.S. but can
transmit signals in only one direction
rather than
two.
One chunk of
spectrum failed to attract the minimum bid
established by officials. That slice of
the airwaves was to be shared by private
winners and public emergency
responders. •
2009
- RF spectrums
used by television stations but due to be
returned to the government in 2009 as the
stations complete their switch to digital
signals -- would provide a third
high-speed data pipe to homes, rivaling
DSL and cable. •
2009
- More wireless
spectrum are slated to change hands in
February, about the same time Analog
becmes digital, but it will take years
more before the new "bunny box" will be
capabilities are fully exploited,
-
EDITORS
NOTE
/ Ivan speaks out. •••The
head of the country's largest phone
company ridiculed San Francisco's interest
in building a municipal Wi-Fi network that
is designed to offer cheap or free
Internet service throughout the city.
President Names Three Communications
Executives to NSTAC
•••Arlington,
VA. June 8, 2007 - The White House
announced today that President Bush
intends to appoint three communications
executives to the President's National
Security Telecommunications Advisory
Committee (NSTAC).
•••According
to the July 11 White House release, the
President plans to appoint Ivan G.
Seidenberg, Chairman and Chief Executive
Officer of Verizon; Mike S. Zafirovski,
President and Chief Executive Officer of
Nortel; and Kyle E. McSlarrow, President
and Chief Executive Officer of the
National Cable and Telecommunications
Association (NCTA) to the advisory
committee.
•••Composed
of up to 30 industry chief executives
representing the major communications,
information technology, finance, and
aerospace companies, NSTAC provides
industry-based advice and expertise to the
President on issues and problems related
to implementing national security and
emergency preparedness (NS/EP)
communications policy. For 25 years, NSTAC
has addressed a wide range of policy and
technical issues regarding communications,
information systems, information
assurance, critical infrastructure
protection, and other NS/EP communications
concerns.
•••Ivan
G. Seidenberg, Chairman and CEO
Verizon
•••Mr.
Seidenberg became Verizon's Chairman of
the Board on January 1, 2004 and has
served as Verizon's sole CEO since April
1, 2002 after serving as co-CEO when
Verizon was formed in 2000. As chief
executive of Bell Atlantic, and previously
of NYNEX, Mr. Seidenberg was instrumental
in reshaping the communications industry
through two of the largest mergers in its
history &endash; the merger of Bell
Atlantic and NYNEX in 1997, and the Bell
Atlantic merger with GTE in 2000. He also
led efforts to form Verizon Wireless.
•••Mr.
Seidenberg began his communications career
more than 39 years ago as a cable
splicer's assistant. His career
encompasses numerous operations and
engineering assignments, including various
leadership positions at AT&T and
NYNEX.
5.
NBS100 Review WiFi / Land-lines NBS100
TeleComunication Study - Regulatory
Frequency Seizure
•
Andrew
Carnegie (November 25, 1835 -- August 11,
1919) was a Scottish-born American
businessman, a major philanthropist, and
the founder of the Carnegie Steel Company
which later became U.S. Steel. He is known
for having built one of the most powerful
and influential corporations in United
States history, and, later in his life,
giving away most of his riches to fund the
establishment of many libraries, schools,
and universities in Scotland, America and
worldwide. CLICK
FOR MORE WALL STREET - 1902
STORY
We
Preserve The Moment Yes90 tviNews S90
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PEOPLE SECTION TimeLine - Ivan Seidenberg
, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of
Verizon. Television International
Magazine's "Person of the Month" -- March
2020 /
Feature Story /
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