By Eyebee, on June 5th, 2008
Verizon has entered into an agreement to buy Alltel for some $5.9 billion, and along with Alltel’s debts of around $22.2 billion this makes the price a total of $28.1 billion.
Alltel currently has 13 million customers; Verizon 67.2 miliion. The buy out gives Verizon a total of about 80 million subscribers, and puts them into #1 position over AT&T who have around 71.4 subscribers.
Alltel serves 34 states, including 57 mostly rural markets.
Let’s hope the some of the cost savings produced by this merger, are passed onto customers, but I’m not about to hold my breath on that one.
It could prove of benifit to Alltel customers in terms of allowing them access to Verizon’s OPen Development initiative. This allows third party devices and services to use the Verizon network, and is rather at the opposite end of the scale when compared to the way that AT&T tried to tie down the iPhone to only it’s own network, and then not want to allow other thrid party services access to it.
By Eyebee, on June 5th, 2008
Could this be the end of Alltel is we know it? Alltel is near to working out a deal to sell the business to Verizon Wireless for $27 billion.
This would make the combined business the largest US carrier, with over 80 million subscribers. It would mean Verizon adding coverage in the Midwest and the South.
The two companies have been talking about such a merger before, but it has been opposed in the past by the UK based Vodaphone who own a 45% share of Verizon, as it would dilute their holdings.
Possible issues arising with such a merger – would the FCC allow all the overlapping of the 805Mhz spectrum? This could have consequences in much of the South West, and also in South Carolina.
Sure the technologies are the same – Alltel and Verizon both use CDMA – but once Verizon has swallowed up Alltel, are they likely to keep the parts that are useful to Alltel’s customers, such as Celltop, and My Circle? Quite possibly not.
News is that we won’t have long to wait for the outcome. A deal could be announced as soon as today.
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