Verizon, BT Combining International Units in Joint Venture

WASHINGTON, June 29, 2026 – Verizon and UK telecom provider BT are combining their international units in a joint venture, the companies announced Monday.

Verizon is paying BT $625 million under the deal. The combined business will bring in about $4 billion in annual revenue, the companies said in a release, and serve more than 3,000 customers in more than 180 countries.

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The companies said in a release the joint venture would “focus on serving multinational organizations.” It will combine Verizon’s international enterprise service, which the release said was wireline-only, and BT International, which already provides multiple connectivity services to multinational customers.

The deal is expected to close in 2027, the companies said. Each will have equal voting power in the joint venture, the companies said, and “will be better able to focus on their domestic markets” once the JV is formed.

BT and Verizon named Martijn Blanken CEO of the JV. The longtime telecom executive has worked at multiple ISPs and telecom investment firms, including the Saudi sovereign wealth fund’s Neo Space Group and Australian telecom provider Telstra.

“Together, we're bringing the strengths of two international businesses I have respected for a long time into a dedicated organisation focused entirely on helping multinational enterprises connect, operate and grow across the world,” he said in a LinkedIn post.

BT CEO Allison Kirkby reportedly told Reuters Monday that the JV “could be the start of further consolidation” and that the companies “could possibly look to bring in third parties at some point in the future.”

Light Reading senior editor Ian Morris wrote Monday that Verizon was “conceivably lured by BT Global Fabric,” which makes connecting to multiple cloud providers easier for multinationals, despite BT International’s poor financials.

“For the multinationals seeking out this capability and trying to avoid overreliance on a single hyperscaler, the BT and Verizon joint venture could look very attractive,” he wrote.

Verizon CEO Dan Schulman said in a statement: “Our international customers require secure, flexible connectivity that works seamlessly across borders and cloud environments. When we thought about how to best support them, this joint venture was the clear answer: a cutting-edge, AI-ready and secure platform run by a single global organization dedicated to their needs.”

In the U.S., Verizon announced last week it was buying rural wireless carrier Carolina West. It was also the biggest spender by far in the Federal Communications Commission’s AWS-3 spectrum auction.

Schulman is trying to make the carrier more customer-centric, and thus competitive in the U.S. mobile market. The company unveiled new plans for both wireless and bundled services earlier this month.