The Company, yes. The Brand, no. Not for a bit at least. The divested markets will still be marketed as Alltel until they are sold, which may take a while.
I was in Alltel last night...the girl I spoke to said that the merger must be complete by December 31st, or it's not going to happen. Not sure what that means...
Pay the Alltel employees no mind. The rank and file have no ideas...NONE...of any of the nitty gritty details of the deal. Frrankly I'd be surprised if it closed BEFORE the end of the year. There are very large bonuses riding a fine line right now. Alltel has met NPS goals for the year so all that is left is meeting financial goals for everybody to qualify for those. This is the difference of $1000 and yes, several days could make the difference. You think that isn't being thought of? NOBODY currently at Alltel wants the deal to close before those conditions are met.
Nobody knows. All that is known is a government appointed Trustee group will be appointed to manage the divested markets until such time as a buyer is found and the market divested. That means they still have to find buyers, then THOSE buyers have to get FCC/DOJ approval prior to finalizing their deals. Given the fact that it took over nine months for this deal to be approved/closed, how long will those procedures take once a buyer is found? Nobody knows nothing - at least not anybody with real knowlege.
I wonder how many potential buyers there may be (if any). I'm sure US Cellular is the only one with a real chance of getting any spectrum, as they're really the only one that needs it, and the only one that could get the approval, but do they have that kind of money? If Verizon can't find a buyer in a certain market they should be allowed to keep the spectrum, IMO.
That would be a travesty. With this deal there is already too little competition. We don't need it getting any worse. I'm hoping USCC can pick up a bunch of these markets. At least that would maintain a little more choice.
I agree - The competition is becoming smaller and smaller the last thing we need is a red blanket suffocating the cellular market with their high prices with no alternative to the rural customer.
I recently was at my local Alltel shop and asked about the Verizon/Alltel merger. They told me there it would be finalized by February, 2009.
This seems to be taking off way too fast. I remember not too long ago, it took about a year for SunCom customers to become "T-Mobile" customers, when the SunCom brand was finally phased out in September. SunCom was a much smaller company than Alltel or Verizon, so how could Alltel & Verizon combine two bigger companies more than twice as fast as SunCom / T-Mo.
I Think that the name change can be quick; however, the integration and divestiture is not going to be done in three months
Could see Cricket or Metro PCS pick up some of those markets... although I would prefer USCC to pick them off... but who knows.
I doubt Metro or Cricket would want to own any 800, when they'd rather have 1900, and they look forward to their 1700/2100 coverage, plus they'd rather build their own 1900 network anyway, and would probably not offer any roaming. We'll see what happens, but really USCC is the only one who could get away with divested spectrum that absolutely needs it. I don't think Verizon would sell to AT&T, and that probably wouldn't get approved anyway.
The FCC has stated that the divested markets must be sold within 120 days, and also required 5 additional markets bring the total to 105 markets... I have decided whether it's going to be good or bad to be divested... My area is not being divested... rather assimilated into the BORG. (If you have ever been to a VZW annual meeting you know what I mean about the BORG comment, there corporate culture is very cult like.)
Frankly I don't think there is a snowball's chance in hell of getting all the divsted markets moved in 120 days...but they will no longer be in control of Verizon once the merger closes. They will be put into the control of a Trustee that will administer them until they are sold.
Yes, I've seen it too. I went to the 2001 annual meeting, in Memphis (Verizon Wireless territory), wearing red CWA garb. I am a steward, and District 2 had called upon my local in District 3 to have our stewards attend in their places as proxies, representing their shares. (Stewards are accredited to the company as local union representatives; the working agreement permits the local to use stewards, and pay them, as needed. The cost of pulling us out of our BellSouth work was reimbursed by the District 2 locals with Verizon Communications members.) About forty of us offered leaflets to the arriving shareholders outside the hotel, and then attended the meeting. Very educational stuff for a new, three month old steward. I glad I'd been reading the annual reports my parents received on their investments as a youth. COtech
The annual meeting I was referencing was the Verizon Wireless annual sales meeting...it's just a big cheerleading session, very scripted. In fact at one of the ones I attended I was given a question to ask the local market president, I turned down the first question, so they gave me another one, which I was glad, because he actually made fun of the employee that asked the other question I was given... pretty lame. I think Verizon has strang financials and do allot of things that are in the best interest of their business, however their corporate culture is vere ego driven, "We are the best... because we say so in our ads." I'm hoping with some influx of a company the size of Alltel, some of that culture will rub off...
Oh! Yes, that would be ever so private, that there could be much rah-rah. My story was about a required, public meeting (hope all enjoyed it). COtech
Does anyone know if the Alltel interests here in WV and KY (SID 126) will be divested to another carrier, or will it stay part of Verizon Wireless?
All of SID 126 (OH, KY and WV) will go to Verizon. Verizon has 1900 MHz service in some areas that overlap SID 126, but their present market share wasn't enough to require any divestitures. Look at this map: http://justsmog.com/mapf.gif royc
Yes that is what it means. You could also say "to get rid off legally". For practical purposes what it means is that divested markets will not belong to Verizon but to whoever buys them.
