Verizon: Investing in Texas Texas represents the largest market in Verizon's nine-state Southwest region, and the company serves about 1.3 million local phone lines in the Lone Star State. Of the total access lines, slightly more than half serve the DFW Metroplex suburbs of Azle, Bartonville, Carrollton, Colleyville, Coppell, Denton, DFW Airport, Flower Mound, Garland, Grapevine, Irving, Justin, Keller, Lewisville, Plano, Rowlett, Sachse, Southlake, Venus and Wylie. At the beginning of 2007, Verizon employed 16,500 people throughout Texas, including those who work at its Domestic Telecom and Wireless divisions. Verizon serves hundreds of thousands of local telephone customers throughout the state including parts of East Texas, Central Texas, the Hill Country, the Rio Grande Valley and the Gulf Coast. Outside of North Texas, the most densely populated markets served by Verizon include Bryan/College Station (home of Texas A&M University) and San Angelo (base of about 1,200 employees who work at various payment, processing, customer service and accounting centers). In addition to local telephone service, Verizon provides long-distance, wireless, plus high-speed and dial-up Internet access in its Texas markets. The company also provides a full spectrum of communications services to Fortune 500 companies, plus numerous mid-sized firms and small businesses. Verizon Texas has invested more than $2.5 billion in the past five years in its network infrastructure. Major expenditures included modernization and upgrades of switching equipment and various interoffice facilities. Other major areas of network modernization focused on the company's data and Internet business, including the construction of an all-fiber-optic network to offer voice, data and video services. Our network is 100 percent digital and includes more than 25 million feet of fiber. Verizon continues to meet the needs of Texas customers by providing excellent customer service. Verizon's business customers benefit from the company's expertise and capacity to provide high-end voice and data services such as Digital Subscriber Line (DSL), ATM, ISDN, VideoConnect, FlexGrow and frame relay. Texas large business customers, institutions and organizations served by Verizon Business, a unit of Verizon, include American Airlines, Boy Scouts of America, Citigroup, DFW Airport Board, EDS, Fidelity, JC Penney, NCR, Sabre, State of Texas, Texas A&M University and the University of North Texas. |
