Alltel to acquire somebody else in 2006, but who?

Best guess, US Cellular. Why? same technology, coverage footprints fits well with Alltel in Midwest & South

 

That's exactly what I was thinking, US Cellular would be it.

 

How about T-Mobile

 

Not very likely that DT would let that happen .....they definitely won't let go of the US market. If they would, I'm sure Vodafone would be the first one to go for T-Mobile USA.

 

LOL. Too bad TM is twice as big as AT, and DT isn't selling anyway. As ShoresGuy noted, TM USA is the star in DT's portfolio.

 

If US Cellular were for sale I would much rather see them go to Alltel than to Verizon. However, do not forget just how much overlap there is now between Alltel & US Cellular:

eastern Kansas
all but extreme western Nebraska
Iowa where Midwest Wireless is
parts of Wisconsin
eastern North Carolina

There are probably others, but these come to mind without looking at the map.

What is sad is that even if they were merged, they are still both locked out of a large part of California and the northeast where Vz & Cingular have a lock on the 850 frequencies. The same goes for more populous areas of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Colorado in the west. In the south, they are still large parts of Texas & Florida they aren't in. (Thanks to the FCC for allowing Cingular to monopolize A&B sides of 850.) THey also don't have areas of northern Alabama, northern Georgia, parts of Tenessee, Kentucky too...

I wish them both luck, but it will still be difficult whatever they do to become national and NOT have to rely on companies to give them good roaming deals. If this was 2010 when the current Alltel/Vz roaming deal expires, Alltel would be struggling.

 

If I were guessing it would be Cellcom, maybe rural Cellular. I doubt Bluegrass Cellular, but you never know.

I am thinking that if US Cellular and Cellular South get boughtout it will be VZW buying them.

Right now USCellular is not pleased with Alltel getting MidWest Wireless. US Cellular has filed a form to the FCC to deny the merger.

 

Metro PCS also services FL.

 

That would not be such a bad idea. Alltel would find it is cheaper just to convert its CDMA footprint to GSM being that with T-Mo most of Alltel would be GSM anyway (Alltel already has a GSM network in place from the WW merger). In the end, Verizon and Sprint would be left with significantly less roaming areas especially in rural areas. Guess who would be taking advantage of those GSM rural roaming deals.

Disclaimer: Don't flame me...just playing.

 

My cousin uses Metro POS in Miami, that's how I know.

 

Metro PCS has been getting more airwaves in FL like getting most if not all of US Cellular's PCS airwaves in FL.

Getting either one will give Alltel some metro coverage in California. Since Alltel only has rural coverage in CA.

 

I read that as well on the FCC page. IMO US Cellular is trying to force Alltel to give up the A-Side in Minnesota.....which I think will happen anyways.

 

I don't know about struggling. They certainly wouldn't be as profitable, but they wouldn't be struggling. Remember most of their customers are in their home coverage. If Verizon rates go up it wouldn't be much more money because people don't usually live in the areas where there is only Verizon and have Alltel. Alltel is not actually striving to be a national carrier, at least judging by comments in their press releases. Now if Verizon cut them off entirely (which would be trouble for Verizon too) and Sprint also did and Alltel would only let the customers roam for 59 cents a minute, then they would be struggling.

 

If Alltel acquires USCC they will have to divest a few markests, but I think the FCC would still approve it. The funny thing is that the Kansas and Nebraska markets USCC picked up after the Alltel/WWC merger would have . Then my parents would be double divested.

As for Alltel acquiring T-Mobile, I think you've got that backwards. If anyone is acquiring anyone, T-Mobile would acquire Alltel since they have DT's backing. It makes sense, if you think about it. T-Mobile needs a larger network, Alltel already has a large portion of it's network set up for GSM roaming thanks to WWC. T-Mobile could buy Alltel, keep everyone on CDMA while utilizing the GSM network for a larger coverage area for it's heritage GSM customers then change everyone to 3G or 4G when the time comes. That way you don't have to convert everyone on CDMA to GSM.

 

If that should happen, then T-Mobile will also have to divest Alltel's WW int'l assets that weren't already sold as part of the WW takeover. T-Mobile bought tele.ring in Austria from Alltel and EirComm bought Meteor. It would also allow them to enter markets like Slovenia where Alltel still owns VEGA which was set up by Western Wireless.

 

The original posting had this statement in the article:

"The outlook also assumes the company closes the $1.075 billion Midwest Wireless Holdings deal around mid-year."

Is that not the referred "future acquisition" of the first paragraph?

 

CricKet also serves the Wasatch Front Area of Northern Utah where the population is and then they would not only have a network in central/southern UT but also in northern Utah and would be a huge player here with their pricing and strong network throughout the state.

 

Anybody have an idea how long Cellcom is going to hang around? They are really a small island of a footprint around Green Bay. I would imagine they would have to be thinking of selling. Alltel does seam like a logical buyer there.