AT&T To Pick Up Former Alltel Markets From Verizon For $2.35 billion

AT&T recently announced at a press release that it has reached an agreement with Verizon Wireless to acquire several former Alltel Wireless assets and 1.5 million subscribers from Verizon for US$2.35 billion in cash. Verizon Wireless was required to divest of most of these particular markets in order to get federal approval for its acquisition of Alltel. The government required Verizon to release these Alltel markets in order to maintain competition.

AT&T are primarily picking up rural markets in the following states: Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming. AT&T claims that it will take only one year to convert the CDMA network markets it is purchasing over to its own GSM and UMTS based system. The carrier expects the transaction to close before the end of 2009.

Verizon Wireless has said it will purchase $240 million worth of subscribers and assets that AT&T is attempting to purchase as part of a pending acquisition of Centennial Communications. It is expected that selling off these parts of Centennial to Verizon will gain AT&T the regulatory approval it needs to complete the deal. This would result in nearly 120,000 subscribers being added to Verizon Wireless.

Source: MobileBurn