Less than a year ago, investors could buy all the Verizon Communications they wanted at a price in the low 40s. Now after announcing impressive third quarter earnings, shares are again closing in on their all-time high in the 60s, set back in 1999 when America’s leading telecom was known as Bell Atlantic.

Forbes contributor Roger Conrad has viewed Verizon worthy of a much higher valuation for some time. For one thing, it’s far more powerful than Bell Atlantic was in the late 1990s, after successfully transitioning from regional local phone monopoly to the country’s most extensive and advanced wireless and broadband wireline network.

Along the way, the company has eclipsed and absorbed a host of erstwhile rivals (remember MCI?). And it’s now in position to lead communications’ greatest leap forward to date: The launch of 5-G networks that will triple global data traffic in three years, enabling a flood of new applications from nearly instantaneous downloads and mobile virtual reality to remote operation of vehicles.

Verizon’s third quarter numbers are the latest confirmation of its growing sector dominance. Despite the near total saturation of 4-G wireless networks in the US and multiple competitors including Comcast Corp (CMCSA), the company added 515,000 net postpaid subscribers in the third quarter. Customer turnover or "churn" was again far below that of rivals at just 80 basis points.

Wireless revenue was 6.1 percent higher than a year ago, excluding the impact of a change in accounting standards. And the company increased the percentage of customers on unsubsidized rate plans to an all-time high of 83 percent, further insulating cash flow from cyclical pressures in the wireless device industry.