Who's gonna last longer??

[Dogma]

Alltel or US Cellular? There is still much discussion of Alltel being groomed as a potential suitor for Verizon to pick up. Other's have thought USCC would be a key addition to Verizon, but I don't here about that as much. Anyone have any thoughts on these two companies, and how long they will be around to operate.

With the upcoming AWS auction, I think we may get a glipse of whether Alltel plans on sticking around for awhile. That is if they do some bidding and pick up some spectrum in larger markets. It just seems that "expert analysts" have Verizon eyeing Alltel. Sometimes I see that, and sometimes I don't think its going to happen.

[jrip]

Alltel plans on sticking around. Alltel's CEO has stated that if Alltel is involved in a mreger that Alltel will be the buyer. I do believe that he also added that Alltel IS NOT for sale. Besides VZW would have to divest "half the country", from one or the other networks, if they bought Alltel. Yes VZW and Alltel have alot of overlaping service areas.

[bobolito]

If anything, I can see Alltel buying USCC. But Verizon might go for it as well.

[bgsales]

I worked at a Verizon Call center when the GTE merger happened... They had a lot of overlapping areas in Washington state, Texas, and Ohio... They just sold the old GTE wireless areas off to other companies, It was Cingular in Texas and Washington state and I think it was voicestream in Ohio... It was a hard changeover because that was when Cingular was still TDMA and GTE of course was CDMA... It's possible that they will still buy if their coverages overlap...

[Fire14]

Originally Posted by Dogma

With the upcoming AWS auction, I think we may get a glipse of whether Alltel plans on sticking around for awhile. That is if they do some bidding and pick up some spectrum in larger markets. It just seems that "expert analysts" have Verizon eyeing Alltel. Sometimes I see that, and sometimes I don't think its going to happen.

I think you will see Alltel buying spectrum in the Auction & trying to get into the bigger cities like NY where they don't have service now so they can become a National carrier.
As for USCC, I think they will get bought out like Suncom but by who is hard to say at this time, but I don't think Verizon is interested in USCC's area, they are too busy looking to buy out Vodafone's share in the company.

[larry]

I'd like to see Alltel and US Cellular merge. Then maybe T-Mobile and some smaller carrier. But once those happen I don't think there should be any additional mega mergers (between any carriers in the top 4 or 5) allowed.

[Fire14]

Originally Posted by larry

I'd like to see Alltel and US Cellular merge. Then maybe T-Mobile and some smaller carrier. But once those happen I don't think there should be any additional mega mergers (between any carriers in the top 4 or 5) allowed.

I agree with you on not allowing any more Mega Mergers between the top 4, I would like to see Alltel become a top National carrier to bring some of the competition back, I do think in the next couple of years when coverage becomes better everywhere that is when we will start seeing pricing competition since the coverage would not be an issue (of course this most likely would only cover the larger population area's in the country, in this time frame)

[larry]

Originally Posted by Fire14

I agree with you on not allowing any more Mega Mergers between the top 4, I would like to see Alltel become a top National carrier to bring some of the competition back, I do think in the next couple of years when coverage becomes better everywhere that is when we will start seeing pricing competition since the coverage would not be an issue (of course this most likely would only cover the larger population area's in the country, in this time frame)

In many parts of the US, coverage is about equal among the top 3 carriers. Here in Orange County, CA there isn't much difference at all. However just 3 or 4 years ago there was a big difference. It takes time to battle nimby's and get cell sites approved but the time has come to where each carrier pretty much has the coverage they want.

[Fire14]

Originally Posted by larry

In many parts of the US, coverage is about equal among the top 3 carriers. Here in Orange County, CA there isn't much difference at all. However just 3 or 4 years ago there was a big difference. It takes time to battle nimby's and get cell sites approved but the time has come to where each carrier pretty much has the coverage they want.

I agree, just in the last couple of years around this part of the country the coverage for the big 4 (except Nextel) has improved drastically and I can see in the next 2-3 it will get even better & more competative, I do think T-Mobile & Sprint have quite a bit more to do vs Cingular & Verizon.

And the biggest problem is like you said, the NIMBYer's

[MOTOhooligan]

I don't think it makes sense for Verizon to buy Alltel. Alltel buying USCC makes sense but there would be quite a bit of divested area if that were to happen.

The merger that makes the most sense in my mind, and the one least likely to actually happen is for T-Mobile to buy Alltel. It could happen the other way, of course, with Alltel buying T-Mobile but somehow I don't think DT will let that happen.

Maybe I just want a T-Mobile/Alltel merger because I have service with both providers? Who knows..?