Verizon chief Ivan Seidenberg gave a particularly candid interview with the Financial Times recently, revealing that he'd like to see Verizon
take full control of Verizon Wireless -- a joint venture with Vodafone in which Verizon holds 55 percent -- given that Verizon is "doing 100 percent of the work." Zing! Despite saying that Voda's "been a great partner," the bulk of the conversation makes it sound like relations are definitely strained between the two telecom giants, and Seidenberg thinks that once bigwig Arun Sarin hands over the Vodafone reigns to Vittorio Colao next month, "maybe he'll want to do something different." You know, "different" as in "sell off $60 billion worth of Verizon Wireless to Verizon Communications." Also interesting is Seidenberg's revelation that Sarin wanted Verizon to snap up Alltel last year before it
sold to private equity firms, but thanks to Verizon's majority on the VZW board, they were able to put the kibosh on the plan, apparently over concerns that they'd end up in a nasty bidding war. Alas,
all's well that ends well, we suppose.
[Via
mocoNews]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Stephen @ Jun 28th 2008 9:42PM
BOOOOO!!!!
:(
I really hoped it would be the other way around and we could get Vodafone to buy out Verizon to speed up the LTE transition.
MajorXero @ Jun 28th 2008 10:31PM
First I quit Verizon, then I work for Alltel. Then they buy Alltel. Now they wanna buy Vodafone's share? That's it. I'm getting a job with T-Mobile. The Germans will never sell.
RC @ Jun 28th 2008 10:52PM
Vodafone won't sell its share.
Doesn't matter who is the head. They're keeping Verizon in their pockets.
elgee02 @ Jun 29th 2008 12:09AM
I doubt whether VZW is owned 100% by VZ or Voda it will make a difference as to when LTE is rolled out. I personally like having Voda own a large chunk of VZW, I hope they keep it.
dave @ Jun 29th 2008 7:59AM
In my opinion, Voda owning a chunk in VZ has lead VZ in the right direction with LTE. A european based company will help keep VZ on track for rolling out a network that is world-compatible.
techietriumph @ Jun 30th 2008 5:49PM
If you ask me, European owned or not, the fact that here in the US were so far behind the 3G trail to begin with, I dont think that International influence will help much if at all. T-mobile for instance, T-mobile American not even offering mobile broadband services of any kind whereas T-mobile UK offers all sorts those kinds of services. My point is that even with international influence, the chance that the US will catch up to Europe in the mobile advancements period will be a longshot. Besides, as the supports of LTE have already said, with Verizon being among them, LTE wont be ready for atleast 3 years to come.
As far as world-compatabile goes, for that to happen, we here in the US would need to adopt the 2100mhz spectrum of 3G wireless if your looking to gain all around world compatabile.