Alltel as a possible takeover target?

I'll disagree about Sprint not having much service in rural areas. You'd be surprised at how much rurual coverage they have now.

 

Sure I would like to see them stay with a CDMA carrier but not if it means prices hiking up. I'd rather have lower prices than a larger carrier with more rural coverage which I wouldn't use anyway.

 

Be careful what you wish for because it just might come true. Then you'll see Verizon raise prices and/or reduce or eliminate certain perks.

 

Not in Michigan! They really need their roaming agreement with Alltel here.

 

Where I live, Alltel is A Side and Verizon is B Side. Sprint is here too. Now I'm wondering what would happen if Verizon did go thru with this buyout. Who would end up with the Alltel network here, USCC?

 

They could possibly keep both and just divest the 1900 freq. In the Cingular and AT&T Wireless merger, Cingular keep both in some areas especially Florida.

 

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/061212/cgtu031.html?.v=80

Both USC and TDS (their parent) were late with their financial reports.

 

.... Now that they have a good roaming agreement with Alltel

 

Has anyone considered that Alltel may be looking to make some purchases of their own?

They have some overlap with US Cellular in the Carolina's and Virginia, but I'm sure they wouldn't mind picking up Chicago.

Then you have carriers such as Leap and Metro that could be pick up for Spectrum purposes...

My bet is on Alltel making a move to be a bigger player... Alltel has been around since 1943, I doubt they are just going to be absorbed by another company.

Take a look at their History:

http://www.alltel.com/corporate/media/history_detail.html

 

That is not excatly correct. Verizon like other providers do have airwaves to cover state, but they don't have all the Cellular B licenses. In the center of the state is CC Communications. North of Las Veagas is WUE Cellular and they are so small that they use Verizon's switching (same SID different NID) to provide wireless service (I think it is pay roam for VZW customers on WUE network). Other than that it is all VZW for Cellular system B.

 

I don't ever seem to be tired of saying this, but I don't think it would be in Verizon's best interests to buyout Alltel.
#1 Divestment is very high
#2 Who is going to get most divestments?? Probably someone that VZW would not want to have them because they are Orange :browani:
#3 Even if it did happen there would be some anti-trust restrictions put on VZW

Add that up and I don't see this happing.

Alltel and VZW are not as Buddy Buddy since the merger of Western Wireless. That also maybe a sign that Verizon does not have the intrest in buying them out.

Will Sprint ever get most of Sprint Cellular back?? That could happen, but I just still see Alltel as the buyer not seller.

US Cellular is tring to be more competitive in plan coverage, but I do see someone someday buying them out.

Cricket and Metro do look good since they have airwaves all over the place and networks in very populated areas that Alltel is not in.

fftopic:
Got an idea :idea:
Since the VZW CEO position is open, and the Old Primeco CEO does not want to keep the position(Lowell McAdam) maybe VZW can have the US Cellular CEO become the VZW new CEO (John E. Rooney) :lol: :loony:

 

So if a provider, like WUE provides service through Verizon's own switch, how come we can't use it without paying roaming? That is just stupid! Also, how did this mess happen there that a little carrier like this, that doesn't even have their own switch, covers one county or whatever?

 

I agree the 700 Band is another option, that I know I forgot about.

And there is one other scenario that could be thrown into this mix, What if Vodafone decided to go for it and break away from Verizon? get the $50 + Million from Verizon & buy Alltel & get into the 700 Mhz auction to get into the major cities and become a National carrier. (Oh and scoop up a regional carrier or 2).

 

I thought about that, but then didn't think it would provide enough of an advantage to them, after all they have VZW. Although I didn't think about picking up more carriers after they do it. If they let vzw buy for 55 or whatever they will have 25-30 to play with. Buy 700, pick up uscc, leap, metro. That would be a big messy swing in the wireless world....

 

Yeah it would be messy, but sure would make it interesting again.
Of course, they would also have to change over the technology, since they probably would prefer GSM over CDMA for global roaming, but they could stick with CDMA.

 

My strongest feeling is that Altel and Tmobile will go at it as a merger. The two can afford to take on more debt and to coninue to buile and change teh infrastucture of the netwrok to GSM. As to Sprint?nextel, I don't see that happening and just because of its current financial picture. VZW might play it a bit to make it harder for others but will have its target limit, it will be just a game to drive up the price and keep the new company in the cost game so they also keep the prices up. So here is my assesment, pricing on a 4 national carrier system will be as is and they will all be similar (but with diferent flavors). Each company would have enough debt that forces them all to keep the price up and by the time they all see an improved financial picture, that would be the time where the price war will start again. Again, I say Tmobile and Altel being as one with Tmobile holding the upper hand of the deal.

 

Sprint has always had roaming agreements with Alltel. I didn't mean that. I meant they have a lot of rural coverage on their own.

 

None of the big 4 will be an appropriate buyer for Alltel. So I scrap T-Mobile, Cingular, Sprint and especially Verizon out of those plans. I rather Alltel stay alone. However, since Alltel has remained highly conservative and not making enough efforts to become national, the option of them acquiring other carriers or more spectrum seems unlikely, so maybe the only option would be to either have some regionals band together (Centennial, US Cellular, Metro PCS, etc.) and acquire Alltel, or maybe have the cable companies that bought the AWS spectrum combine that with Alltel's and make a truly national competitor, or maybe a foreign investor (like Vodafone or Orange) shuffle some pieces around and buy Alltel and make it a national competitor. Or else, if Alltel is to remain alone, the best thing for them is to buy some of that 700Mhz spectrum and become national. Maybe they weren't interested in all that range-limited 2100Mhz spectrum.

 

What I meant is that they operate them or could easily take them over.

WUE is the telco coop in Lincoln county (shaped like a mirror-image of Utah) in
SE Nevada that has the B-side license, but Verizon installs and manages the
actual service.

As for Churchill County Communications, which is one of the few county-owned
telcos in the nation (and arguably the most successful financially), they DO own
their own B-side cellular business. It used to be owned and managed by VZW,
just like WUE's, but they installed their own CDMA switch a few years back.
But to any Verizon customer it looks just like their own network--that's how
tight they are. If you look closely, their area roughly follows US-95 from Oregon
town to Clark county (Las Vegas) with an extension in the middle along the most
rural part of US-50. Since this also includes part of Interstate-80 and US-95 is the
main route between Reno and Las Vegas, that's a lot of roamers. At home, the
Fallon Naval Air Station is home of the infamous Top Gun School, which is almost
certainly why Sprint and Nextel both have native service out there--but not VZW.

It's actually kind of surprising that VZW hasn't offered a buyout considering
this is just more or less an island surrounded by VZW operations and the money
that can be made in the Churchill county area itself. As for WUE, well, there's
probably not enough money involved to matter as Lincoln is one of the least
populated areas in the state--a couple of thousand people at most. The western
border is also very close to Area-51, BTW, but I'm sure you won't find service
there!

Mike

 

I see this happening about as much as a VZW buyout, but different reasons:
T-Mobile has little interest in serving rural areas. But much more importantly is
the infrastructure: ALLTEL has committed themselves to CDMA and has been
VERY busy (at least around here) converting all but a handful of WW TDMA
sites to CDMA. T-Mobile comes along, they would have to rebuild the ENTIRE
ALLTEL network to make it GSM and then switch all its customers over to new
phones. Yes, I know they have that GSM roaming, but it's on 1900 MHz and the
cell spacing is too far for that band.

Cingular buying them wouldn't work for the same reasons.

These companies seem rich, but they're still busy building out and upgrading
their existing network and competing for what now is a fixed amount of people
not only with themselves, but with the MVNOs. When you consider THAT, I don't
think even Sprint is in the running since they're having their own financial woes
right now.

And thanks to Edward for showing me that USCC in reality is itself a much
smaller chunk of meat than ALLTEL and would probably go first.

I forgot to add my thoughts on Leap and Metro: considering those company's
business models are so different, I think their customers would scream
bloody murder if a traditional carrier bought them. MUCH more likely would
be their merger with each other.

Mike

 

Yes if T-Mo and Alltel get together it is very unlikely the would convert the network GSM. Alltel has put a lot into the CDMA and EVDO build out. They might overlay it with GSM for their own customers, but I don't see them being not CDMA. I also believe it would be a lot cheaper to overlay the T-Mo network with CDMA then Alltel to GSM.

 

What it sounds like to me is that investors would buy the company and sell off the parts... liquidate the assets. Verizon would get this market, Sprint would get that market, etc. The Big Four could fill in coverage holes and gain extra spectrum.

Are the sum of Alltel's parts greater than the whole? Seems like corporate raiders could make lots of money on something like that.

 

Some sort of scenario where the network would be bought and divided up amongst all of the carriers would be better than just one carrier ending up with the whole thing. IMO

 

T-Mobile will never convert to CDMA. All of the T-Mobile networks around the world are GSM/UMTS.

 

I know that. And Alltel will never convert to GSM. So an overlay where needed is the only possibility in that scenario. I was saying that I believe it would be cheaper to convert T-Mo to cdma, then it would be to convert Alltel to gsm. Even with a small amount of the old WW network already being gsm. Especially since Alltel has invested into EVDO and plan to have their whole network that way in a short time.

 

I am not so sure converting T-Mo to CDMA will be cheaper. Alltel may have far more geographical coverage than T-Mo, but I am willing to bet T-Mo has far more cell sites than Alltel being that T-Mo only runs on 1900Mhz exclusively, which requires more towers, and also T-Mo is primarily an urban carrier which requires far more towers than the mostly rural areas where Alltel serves. Plus, a great portion of Alltel's network is already GSM so it is easy to conclude that a GSM to CDMA conversion will require much more work as more towers will need to be converted. Plus, we have to factor in that GSM equipment for carriers is less costly than CDMA equipment.

 

Actually it would be cheaper to convert Alltel to GSM if T-Mobile bought them (Alltel wouldn't have a say anyway) because the equipment is cheaper. That's one of the reason some CDMA carriers overseas are converting to GSM. Also they could sell the CDMA equipment to other carriers. But if Alltel is sold then the excess capital could be used to buy out some one like US Cell and some of the other smaller carriers to make a bigger competitor.

 

It would be wonderful for that to happen, but I think the cost of transfering everyone over to GSM would be a huge undertaking in T-Mobiles part. I think they would probably want to focus on a buildout of the native t-mobile network, not to mention they want to put that new spectrum that they just bought to good use in 07. I suspect that theyll be a big player in the 700mhz spectrum as well. Not to mention that would practically nullify all the roaming agreements they have in the middle of the country. What about SunCom as a possibility, after being delisted and such wat does their future hold? Ill keep dreaming for alltell tho

 

If a GSM carrier bought up ALLTEL and converted all CDMA to GSM(and a GSM carrier like T-Mobile probably won't keep up CDMA) then CDMA coverage will greatly suffer, and in a lot of areas of the west, where today, there is CDMA/AMPS or nothing(sometimes ALLTEL GSM overlay) there will be GSM only...that would be really bad for CDMA coverage in a lot of places out West. Personally, I more and more want ALLTEL to stay by itself. They have done a great job so far, and they will continue to do a great job. In the future, I would like them eat up some small rural carriers here and there, making ALLTEL the definite rural coverage king.

 

I agree with that, but how far will the FCC/SEC let alltell go with buyouts since they are #1 in the rural areas?