We suppose you could think of AT&T and Verizon as football teams and wireless markets as high-priced players, because a few of 'em just got traded like the athletic pieces of meat that they are. It's no secret that Verizon had to
offload some markets to satisfy government requirements following its Alltel buy, and AT&T has now agreed in principle to pick up about 1.5 million subscribers' worth of spectrum and equipment in 79 market areas -- mostly rural -- for some $2.35 billion in cash. In the other direction, Verizon will be cutting AT&T a check for $240 million in exchange for about 120,000 subs in five legacy Centennial markets -- contingent, of course, on the successful completion of
AT&T's purchase of Centennial. Interesting moves, but it'll be even more interesting to see which move leads its team to the playoffs... er, you know what we mean.
Read - AT&T agrees to acquire divestiture properties from Verizon
Read - Verizon acquires certain Centennial Wireless properties from AT&T
posted May 9th 2009 at 3:43PM
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
cowabungaCarl @ May 9th 2009 4:14PM
how does this work smoothly for each company considering Verizon uses CDMA and ATT uses GSM?
Al @ May 9th 2009 4:57PM
AT&T is buying the GSM portion of Alltel Wireless.
I have no idea what Verizon is getting from AT&T.
Adam @ May 9th 2009 9:10PM
AT&T is buying all of Verizon's divested markets not just the GSM ones.
??? @ May 9th 2009 4:58PM
Mmm...meat.
J @ May 9th 2009 5:05PM
Per the official ATT release, from the date of closing the purchase att has intentions on having a full gsm network functioning within 12 months in the newly acquired markets.
zephead @ May 9th 2009 5:28PM
Oilers? Really?
Jonathan @ May 10th 2009 8:54AM
Sadly.... NC will not be getting 850 Mhz.... I am at a loss as to when this might happen!
Michael @ May 30th 2009 11:13PM
Yes even more sadly for Verizon Wireless users. Definitely AT&T is going to swap all of CDMA to 3G GSM by end of this year just as AT&T had said
http://www.3gwirelessjobs.com/news/getnewsitem/705/AT&T_swaps_Verizon_Wireless_CDMA_to_GSM_Technology.html
Ex. 1 - Public Interest Statement
http://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/ApplicationSearch/applAdminAttachments.jsp?applID=4953348#
AT&T divest market in Dark Blue and Verizon divest market in Light Blue
http://cellularmap.net/vzw/vzw+alltel.shtml