Verizon Wireless To Buy Alltel For $28B

CWmike writes "Matt Hamblen reports that Verizon Wireless has officially announced an agreement to purchase Alltel for $28.1 billion, which would make the new company the largest wireless carrier in the U.S., with 80 million subscribers. The deal will undoubtedly provoke scrutiny by the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice, they acknowledge. Who loses? 'This [deal] is another nail in the coffin for Sprint," said Michael Voellinger, an analyst at Telwares in Parsippany, N.J. 'Alltel is a highly valuable and strategic roaming partner to the top four providers, and this acquisition would put long-term pressure on pricing and terms of those arrangements.'"

I love merger's

[Galactic Dominator]

In my area, there are two choices if you wish service outside the metro....Verizon and Alltel. I've been with Alltel for a couple of years and I switched from Verizon. I left Verizon for a reason, and I'm sure many of you know what that is. Poor customer service, billed for things I didn't have, etc, /etc. Alltel has had a few issues with my account, but at least they've resolved them when I call in.

Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope!

I Hope...

[dougmwne]

I hope this isn't the final nail in Sprint's coffin. I happen to be very attached to my $30/month everything unlimited SERO plan.

First of many

[afidel]

As many market watchers have pointed out the weaken US economy combined with a likely end to the lazafaire practices of the Bush administration means there are likely to be a fairly large number of mergers started in Q2 and Q3 so that they can get past regulators before a new government is in place.

Re:yeah.. but..

[oahazmatt]

Verizon locks down everything, Alltel is freedom. This is bad for Alltell customers in that respect!

Yes, Verizon locks down quite a bit. I have to use BitPim just to do some file transfers.

However, having a $22 Billion debt is not good for Alltel customers, either. They may have "America's largest network" but they don't exactly have America's largest customer base, (The article I read this morning had them at about 15% and 20% of the Verizon and AT&T customer base, respectively) and in order to continue providing to its customers, the company needs some relief.

Is this a good thing? Maybe. I'd like to think the two networks will operate under a large umbrella and Verizon and Alltel might remain as independent as possible, just provide a more complete network coverage.

Is this a bad thing? Maybe. Alltel customers may be turned off if sudden phone lockdowns come out of this.

Guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Not sure if this is good for me or not

[GweeDo]

As a very happy Alltel customer I am not sure what to think of this. While being part of a larger provider does offer more features and phones and what not, Alltel is crazy liberal with what they let you do with your phone. Basically if the MFG supports it, GO FOR IT! Verizon on the other hand is the exact opposite. If you don't pay for their branded apps (other than hacking) you don't get it.

Oh Joy

[Jewfro_Macabbi]

I've been a happy Alltel customer since December - glad to know I can look forward to higher prices, lower customer service, and a throttled internet connection - now likely to be run straight through NSA central. I'm thrilled.

Re:Obligatory

[contrapunctus]

I had verizon. I hated the phone lockdown. So I switched to Midwest Wireless. They were awesome. They didn't mess with the phones. They were friendly. If you canceled or got a new phone they would prorate the cancellation penalty (If you sign a 2 year contract, and cancel after 1 year, you would only pay half the penalty, etc).
Alltel bought Midwest Wireless. I can't get google calendar notifications (until very recently) anymore. Not so friendly. I was pondering leaving Alltel.

It's full circle, if Verizon buys Alltel, I'm back with Verizon.

Fuck it. Time to get an iPhone.

Re:yeah.. but..

[0100010001010011]

Running nothing of Note? Nextel IS the phone of large companies.

NexTel started out as fleet dispatch frequencies and moved into the cell phone range. NexTel has always been an excellent niche between 2 way radios and full blown cell phones.

Our factories have numerous repeaters in them so that we have full coverage in the building. Push to Talk is used constantly. It seems to be the same for all other friends of mine that work in the manufacturing world. AT&T, Verizon are great for upper management and executives but anyone that might get grease on their hands uses a NexTel

J2ME, BREW is all junk for our work. Most of our phones show 4 lines of black on green. They'll all survive a drop from a second story building, being plunged under water and being left in dash in the sun. The batteries also last twice as long as any 'consumer' cell phone I've used.

NexTel definitely has something to bring to the table.
-
While I've never used them AllTel has seemed to drive a bit of competition. First they had the "5 friends" thing then it seems everyone had that. Now they're up to "Any friend on any network" which other people seem to be copying.

Re:First of many

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, "lazafaire"?

Well, that was fun....

[Delecron]

Verizon now has a network that no one will be able to touch for years. Even if ATT bought everyone else it wouldn't have such dominate coverage (That's after getting the technology integrated). In the end ATT will never be able to catch up. Verizon and Alltel are both on the same path to LTE, will have little to no technology integration issues and will save billions in operating and roaming costs. Between their acquisition of MCI, FIOS TV and Internet and now this dominating wireless coverage they pretty much own any kind of retail data you could want to purchase. Wimax is going to be relegated as the last huge failure by Sprint as they fade into the background. Only thing to do is sit back and wait for the commercial where the VZW guy stretches his hand out to Chad and says "Your not such a bad guy". As Chad cracks a tear and puts his hand out the VZW guy rips it off and beats him to death with it.

Re:Obligatory

[CrazedWalrus]

I had T-Mobile for my contractually mandated time. During that time, I couldn't even keep a call going in midtown Manhattan, let alone suburbia. I hated going to Verizon because I've had bad experiences with their billing people screwing things up, but I did it because I at least wanted the service I was paying for.

Well now I've got FiOS and Verizon Wireless and so far have been happy. My expectations of horrifically screwed-up billing never did come true, so I can say that right now, at this moment, I'm a happy customer. I make no claims or prognostications concerning next week.

I know people in IT at ALLTEL (used to work there myself), and they're in the phase of wondering what's going to happen with their jobs. Verizon is a company of some considerable size, and may find a few "redundancies" in the new organization. They've been trying to convert to consultant staffing for a while now, probably to reduce the number of actual layoffs (and accompanying severance packages) when the time came. Hopefully VZW can find other jobs within the company for those who are left.

ALLTEL forms a pretty big part of the local IT job market where I'm from, and I'd hate to see those positions closed.

Re:Obligatory

[Aldenissin]

My girlfriend is with T-Mobile. I ditched Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint over the years. Last time I wanted to get Nextel, but Sprint bought them out. This time I wanted to get Alltel, and she was going to come with me, but Verizon has bought them out. I guess I didn't need a cell phone as badly as I thought. Well, time to find another reason to spend some of my "tax refund" check since we planned on buying our own phones in case Alltel ever did something really stupid. At least I saved the cost of buying the phones.

Re:Great...

[PopeRatzo]

Yeah, "great" is right.

Lord knows we've already got too much competition in the telecom space, right?

Pretty soon we'll have two airlines, two telecoms, two oil companies, two pharmas and two entertainment conglomerates. Oh, and two companies that own all the newspapers, TV networks, etc and those will be two of the companies from the list above. Two companies that make airplanes in the US (or is it down to one now?). Two banks, of course, and they will also be the only two brokerages.

What the fuck is our justice department doing? Have any of them heard of anti-trust?

Ain't the free market grand?

Re:Obligatory

[Pascoea]

I want to qualify the following statement(s) by the fact that I currenty have both an Alltel and a Verizon Razr. One is my work phone. (one is a v3c, other is a v3m)

I love my Alltel Razr. I can change the function of all the softkeys, re-order the menus, download my pictures thru bluetooth, the UI is fast, responsive, and intuitive.

As far as I'm concerned, Verizon can keep their phone and their service. Take everything I listed above about my Alltel phone and throw it in the trash. Their UI is complete shit, nothing is where you would think to look for it, it's slow as hell, I can't change the functions of any of the softkeys, etc, etc, etc. (no, I dont want to get pix and flix. I want to know where my fucking pictures are, and I want to be able to download them without having a text message plan)

Argh. Sorry Verizon, you loose.