It surprised me to find them modeled more closely to NYNEX than Microsoft.
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In 1996, while serving as CEO of Nynex, he was instrumental in pulling off a merger with Bell Atlantic.
FCC's open-market test as a result of concessions made when it bought Nynex.
So Nynex is likely to take a third route, leaving existing numbers un changed and allotting 646 codes to all new lines.
Splitting Manhattan geographically would alienate half the borough and cost Nynex a fortune: when British Telecom split London's codes in 1990 it had to distribute 75m explanatory leaflets.
Last year Bell Atlantic itself nabbed Nynex for Dollars25 billion.
And status-conscious Manhattanites will be unhappier than all other New Yorkers put together if their number is up: especially if, as Nynex intends, they have to trade their trendy 212 for the less sexy 646.
In the past four years demand for 212 numbers has more than tripled thanks to second lines, modems, faxes and the emergence of about 30 small competitors which, says Nynex, buy telephone numbers in blocks of 10, 000.
So Nynex, hardly the most popular local telephone company in America, knew it was in for a scrap when it recently unveiled a plan to deprive some Manhattanites of their treasured 212 area code--arguably the only local telephone code that is recognised from Tokyo to Tomsk.
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