Verizon buys Alltel for $28.1 billion

[Eric]

Apparently tired of being the second-largest U.S. wireless carrier, Verizon Wireless has finalized a deal that will vault it past AT&T and net it millions of new wireless subscribers.

Verizon announced today that it has reached an agreement to purchase the nation's fifth-largest wireless carrier, Alltel Wireless, for a total of $28.1 billion. After adding Alltel's 13 million customers to its ranks, Verizon will have the most subscribers in the United States, with around 80 million.AT&T, which has mostly held the lead for total wireless subscribers since merging with Cingular back in 2004, currently has an estimated 71 million subscribers.

"This move will create an enhanced platform of network coverage, spectrum and customer care to better serve the growing needs of both Alltel and Verizon Wireless customers for reliable basic and advanced broadband wireless services," says Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam

Full Story (http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/060408-verizon-alltel.html?t51hb)

What are your opinions on this? I got verizon and many friends got alltel so this is a pretty good thing for me I guess :)

[LiNuX]

lol figures, alltel was pretty good for a while and i know a few of my friends switched from verizon to alltel, i know some of them will be mad about hearing this lol

i deal with only verizon (business phone+Dsl) at times so it won't affect me greatly, and my cell phone provider is t-mobile anyway

[Eric]

Probably the phones from each company will be compatible with each other now, which could be pretty cool.

I dunno it could be a good thing, or bad, depending on how they work with it all

[LiNuX]

Probably the phones from each company will be compatible with each other now, which could be pretty cool.

I dunno it could be a good thing, or bad, depending on how they work with it all

well they'll change the name to verizon for sure cuz verizon bought bell atlantic like a decade ago and they changed their name lol

[Eric]

Well it will be good for the alltel users since verizon has more towers I would assume

But like I said, it could be good, or bad. It just depends on what verizon does for changes and stuff like that

[conman1000]

All I have to say is At&T is going to be pretty ticked.

Edit: I also noticed that I have alltell. Wonder how many of my friends have Verizon.

[jakncoke]

Verizon is meh imo until they bring Fios to my area. Also they're tech support is amongst the worst on the planet, if your going to outsource for cheaper labor...buy them proper English classes.

[LiNuX]

Verizon is meh imo until they bring Fios to my area. Also they're tech support is amongst the worst on the planet, if your going to outsource for cheaper labor...buy them proper English classes.

agree about the fios - a verizon building across the street and yet, no fios for me....i need that upload speed! and i dont even know anyone that has fios in their area which is weird

[wifi]

wow 28.1 billion, they will do anything to become huge

[Iceskater101]

yeah I know really verizon will do practically anything. I dont really care about it that much. No one in my groups of friends have altel or how ever you spell it.

[Kujo]

I don't care one way or another UNLESS this effects my payment plan. I have Altell and if this screws with the "MyCircle" thing.. i will be greatly pissed and blow up Verizon for ruining the single best cell plan i've ever used.

[Iceskater101]

IK! my circle is like a really good thing that would suck if they didnt have that anymore

[Trunks]

I know this is kind of old, but found it pointless to start another thread on it. I think it's awesome, because I'll get better service at my house.

So does anyone know when this is supposed to take effect?

[LiNuX]

what do you mean take effect? like your phone logo magically turns to Verizon? lol, sorry a bit confused on the question - they already own alltel - but if you mean when they'll be actually changing the name, I am not sure - usually takes them a while, I believe they still used the MCI name for a year or two before they actually officially changed it, not sure if they did the same with Bell Atlantic

I believe the Bell Atlantic thing was a merger...I don't remember details

[Trunks]

I meant when are they going to change the name lol. Didn't expect the logo to change when I turned it on, but would be pretty sweet.

[LiNuX]

I meant when are they going to change the name lol. Didn't expect the logo to change when I turned it on, but would be pretty sweet.

lol unlikely, would be cool though

but right now I am not a verizon customer of any kind - used to have internet until they screwed with me for almost 3 months when i moved a year and a half ago - right now the only service I want from Verizon is FIOS and they don't even offer it in my area lol

[Trunks]

Just phone service is the only thing that I have it for. Just came to my mind. Do they already have it so the signal coming from the Verizon towers work on Alltel phones. can they do that pretty easy, or does everything have to be rewired.

[LiNuX]

Just phone service is the only thing that I have it for. Just came to my mind. Do they already have it so the signal coming from the Verizon towers work on Alltel phones. can they do that pretty easy, or does everything have to be rewired.

I'm sure they've already taken control over alltell cell towers and satellites - even though they read Alltel, they are controlled by Verizon - take overs occur quickly, the huge obvious changes take time

[Samus-Fan]

I heard something about almost every phone company lowering Bandwidth or something like that.
Almso teveryone except Verizon or something.
True or not? Not idea. Anyone heard anything on this?

[LiNuX]

cell phones don't use a lot of bandwidth, usually its a one on one call, just a few bytes of bandwidth back and forth a second

and I haven't heard anything about that - doubt they'll lower anything like that, they are more likely to increase it because cell phone users are still increasing over time.

[jakncoke]

cell phones don't use a lot of bandwidth, usually its a one on one call, just a few bytes of bandwidth back and forth a second

and I haven't heard anything about that - doubt they'll lower anything like that, they are more likely to increase it because cell phone users are still increasing over time.

He's talking internet bandwidth. Comcast currently has I believe 250gb/m cap and Time Warner recently announced if you don't get the top plan you'll be capped off at 100gb/m. Totally killing off the chances of DD over taking physical media anytime soon. Anyways if Verizon keeps Fios cap free and eventually get to every city(2500 they might..slow bastards :mad1:) they really could monopolize the market if they play their cards right.

[LiNuX]

ah, so I was a bit confused - the US Bandwidth limit is still by far much bigger than most other places. 100GB is a lot but I hate Caps seeing I have like 4 regular computers running 24/7

hopefully FiOS comes to my area soon...I need the extra speed, it'll allow me to expand the GF Servers as well as GF itself.

stupid verizon

[jakncoke]

ya I constantly read about terrible caps from across the pond and aussieland. I dl'd bitmeter to see how much I go through to see if I would survive if certain caps were put on me. I'm fairly certain I could handle the Comcast cap, but that's only because of my condensed speed, If my speed was higher I'd go past that limit in no time. But yeah caps suck totally.

[LiNuX]

ah, I might get a meter myself to see how much I use in one day, or a week...I doubt I go near the cap, I don't download unnecessary things - and the GF Servers is probably the largest bandwidth consumer when full and that doesn't happen too often, Other than that its my regular pc

if one day my net shuts off cuz I exceeded bandwidth, Time warner is gonna have one screamy unhappy customer on the phone bugging them until my internet comes back online

[jakncoke]

http://i33.tinypic.com/35a98hw.png

If I switched to ATT, I would die, also more funny apparently for every gb you go over it's +1 dollar to your bill.

[LiNuX]

eww 20gb? 10 years ago I probably would have been fine seeing that I was still on Dialup 10 years ago (if I remember correctly)

[Samus-Fan]

Yea, internet capping.
If Verizon keeps it no-caps, and Fios is spread like you guys said, they definatly could beat the competititon.
I don't understand why they want to cap bandwidth anyway, I don't see a need for it except earning money.

[LiNuX]

Yea, internet capping.
If Verizon keeps it no-caps, and Fios is spread like you guys said, they definatly could beat the competititon.
I don't understand why they want to cap bandwidth anyway, I don't see a need for it except earning money.

you just answered your own question lol