Verizon merger with Alltel to go through by Friday
The Verizon/Alltel merger that the FCC approved back at the beginning of November is finally set to go through this week, with Alltel becoming part of Verizon by Friday. This acquisition will restore Verizon to the subscriber top-spot, a position it lost when AT&T acquired Cingular in 2004.
The 28.1-billion-dollar deal will bring Verizon up to around 80 million subscribers, though it will be losing some of those. As part of the conditions the FCC imposed when approving the merger, Verizon has to sell off a certain portion of Alltel's assets to other carriers, including network infrastructure and the accounts for a couple million customers. Verizon will have four months from Friday to see that it makes good on those promises. The company plans to issue a statement next week once the deal's officially through, hopefully outlining just what changes are in store for the migrating Alltel subscriber base.
This story around the web:
- Trusted sources:
Verizon - Alltel merger to become official on… [MobileBurn.com]
-
Verizon to close Alltel deal Friday [Crave]
-
Verizon Wireless To Overtake AT&T As Biggest… [Alley Insider]
Get more information on topics relating to this story:
- Related company news:
- AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Alltel Wireless, Cingular Wireless
- Related glossary terms:
- FCC
Sony PS3 Slim image gallery
Comments (3)
Add a comment Inappropriate or promotional comments may be removed.
Anonymous (9:29 PM on Tue Jan 6, 2009)
i wonder why it took so long for this deal to go through,because its not like verizon is buying a company like at&t,they are buying a small company that has a massive debt load.i was surprised verizon was ready to make a purchase like this since alltel is in such huge debt.the fcc were idiots for telling verizon what to do when purchasing alltel,if verizon wanted to sell some assets then its there decision.i dont think fcc had the right to tell verizon to dump some assets when they have to assume that 22 billion debt.
Calvin McGee (12:22 PM on Thu Jan 8, 2009)
The FCC issued that verizon sell some of alltel assets because they are attempting to keep verizon from monopolyzing the wireless industry. Because if they acquire all of alltel. (Which is covered in 38 states.) There would be no competition. Because Verizon is all ready as big as AT&T by itself. So its not stupid, its politics.
Anonymous (4:25 PM on Sun Jan 18, 2009)
Will the alltel Chad commercials still be playing on tv? I love those.