Cingular responds to Alltel rumors

I edited the thread title since it read as if Cingular had bought Alltel, which they have not done.

 

It is sad that Alltel wants to be acquired. It is not good to lose another competitor. But if we are to lose that competitor, then as much as I hate Verizon I would rather them buying Alltel instead of AT&T. Maybe a cable company should go for them or maybe even Vodafone....

We know Sprint and T-Mobile are out of the question on this one. But which of Verizon or AT&T do you think will raise more anti-trust concerns acquiring Alltel? I would say AT&T would raise more anti-trust concerns.

 

I also hope neither one gets Alltel, they have a good company & I would hate to see Verizon or AT&T destroy that.

 

I want Alltel to buy Sprint. lol.

 

Both companies must be nose-to-nose in the anti-trust race, given their size I would hope that both of them raise enough concern to stop the acquisition — both VZW and AT&T are big enough as it is.

 

Well it could very well be true, but I bet if one wants it, then one would put a blocks in many areas as a spin off like Cingular did with ATTW. This will be skirting ion the line for the antitrust but if the majority of the areas covered by Altel are not covered by the others accept under roaming agreements then any one can go into the bidding war with pre-conditions submitted to the FCC and the DOJ.

 

I have this sneaking suspicion that the Cingular people remember Voda driving the AT&T wireless cost up. Now they see that Alltel might be ripe for the buy, and are trying to get back at Voda/Verizon.

 

Since Alltel is a CDMA carrier and a great roaming partner to Sprint I would like to see them remain with CDMA. So if I had to choose I would hope Verizon would get them.

 

Sprint/Nextel won't buy Alltel because they are still dealing with the 2005 merger.
Verizon won't buy Alltel because they are still trying to buy out Vodafone's stake in the company
T-Mobile won't buy Alltel because their parent Deutsche Telekom won't

So I guess the only company that can really buy Alltel is at&t/Cingular? They could probably avoid all of the antitrust junk since both carriers use a different technology, which would somewhat take the word "monopoly" away from the equation. Seriously, if the FTC and SEC approved of at&t buying BellSouth, I can't see them turning down at&t/Cingular buying Alltel.

 

So this is just speculation, or At&t is really getting ready to buy Alltel?

 

according to jones' post, they are negotiating the sale now. it wont become final for a while until the FCC, FTC, and SEC finalize the sale

 

So this may be the end for Alltel after all

But I wonder if At&t buys Alltel if they will keep it CDMA or if they will convert it to GSM....

 

The economical thing to do would be to keep the CDMA, but I doubt they would. They will probably keep it until the network is completely overlayed with GSM before they abandon CDMA. Them taking down CDMA will be huge hits to Verizon and Sprint, since both depend on Alltel's rural coverage for roaming. Cingular/at&t may have hit the jackpot if they buy Alltel: Get 12 million more customers, more coverage, more $$, and sabotaging their compitetion.

 

Alltel/USCC Merger, VodaPhone buying Alltel, I'm okay with these... I don't see Cingular as having real interest since there is too much to deal with for antitrust there.

I think, as others have speculated, that CingulAT&T is just doing this to raise Alltel's price if Verizon is interested. Payback's a

 

Another possibility is keep some of the CDMA for roaming revenue & overlay GSM for their customers, basically the opposite of what Alltel is doing now, they do have some GSM up for roaming revenue.
Or the FCC could require it to keep coverage available for these carriers.

 

I still think T-Mobile would be able to pull it off.

 

Agreed. I think there will have to be a stipulation of some sort by the feds requiring that CDMA be kept available for roamers. Otherwise there will be a lot of unhappy wireless users out there who all of a sudden one day lose coverage.

 

It's funny how just a couple of weeks ago the front runners to purchase Alltel were not AT&T or Verizon but private investment firms. Then all of a sudden it becomes AT&T just like that. I knew the talk of private investment companies was just talk and that one of the largest wireless carriers would much more likely be involved.

 

So watch do you all think the probability of this happening is?

 

It will be the same if a CDMA provider buys Alltel. FCC is going to want GSM/WCDMA to stay up in markets where Alltel is the only one with it. The only reason why the FCC will want CDMA2000 or GSM to stay in some markets will be only for safety reasons (911 calls).

 

I saw this on CNBC this morning, they said that alltel approached at&t as a prospective buyer, but the $30 billion price tag set them back a little bit. It will be intresting to see what happens. Does AT&T really have that much cash to spend on Alltel especially after the recent take over of cingular? Itll also take a huge amount of money to overlay GSM onto Alltel's vast network. We'll see. I personally would like to see a personal investment group take over alltel, because otherwise theres always going to be the antitrust and devestment issues.

 

AT&T has enough cash. They are then No. 1 Telecom company here and their addition of BellSouth gave them even more revenue. If anyone has the cash to do this, it's AT&T.

 

Mark my words. If AT&T is allowed to buy Alltel then we will see prices rise and other mergers will follow. Verizon will want to find another carrier to merge with (ie. US Cellular or Metro PCS) so they can stay close in size to AT&T. T-Mobile will look for someone (ie. Suncom) and then maybe Sprint will look to buy up some of the inevitable divestments.

 

I can see it now...

I think if it does go through - we are going to go through another breakup of big MaMa Bell... but instead of landline like it was back in the 20th century...

In this 21st century, we are going to see Mama Bell's cellular division being broken up into smaller cell phone companies due to the huge monopoly they will have.

 

I think AT&T will keep the CDMA for Roaming and do a overlay with GSM.
Plus Alltel has roaming argree with other CDMA carriers and the other carrier can hold the new company accountable for these roaming agreements.

When we bought out a 1900 GSM company they had roaming agreements with Tmobile. That was 3 years ago and we still have to maintain 1900 PCS for Tmobile to roam on and we have one more year.

 

Without a doubt it would cause a flurry of mergers & price increase's that would get out of control. Heck prices are getting out of control now & there is still competition.
T-Mobile needs someone big time right now to stay up there with the big 3 as far as subscribers go & hopefully they do something soon.

I don't know if AT&T really want's to spend $30 Billion for Alltel or any other carrier at this time feels they are worth this much, but they do have some benefits.
If Verizon or even Sprint took them over, they would put Cingular into the # 2 position, with Sprint having a few million over them. Now Verizon would have so many customers over Cingular, I don't know if they would ever be # 1 again.

 

Converting the CDMA to GSM seems like a lot of work and would only add to the expensive cost of the merger.