14 DAY TRIAL // According to the latest news around the web, the US wireless carriers AT&T and Verizon have recently agreed to ink a deal through which AT&T will purchase wireless assets from Verizon Wireless. The agreement between the two states that AT&T will pay $2.35 billion for some properties related to Verizon's acquisition of Alltel Corp.
As many of you might already know, Verizon Wireless, established as a joint venture between Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group PLC, acquired Alltel Corp. earlier this year for $28.1 billion. Government regulators required the company to sell service areas spread over 18 states and 79 rural areas, as Alltel territories overlapped here with Verizon's own coverage.
AT&T, one of the largest telecommunications companies in the country, will purchase a market that covers around 1.5 million subscribers, most of which came from Alltel, and is also reported to selling to Verizon a number of five Centennial Communications Corp. service areas in Louisiana and Mississippi in a $240 million transaction.
According to AT&T, the deal for purchasing Verizon assets is expected to close sometime in the fourth quarter of the ongoing year; it will need less than a year to convert the areas to its network technology, in a move that will cost the carrier about $400 million. The deal includes service areas in states like Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia and Wyoming.
The acquisition of Alltel brought Verizon 13.2 million subscribers, allowing the carrier to report a total customer base of 86.6 million for the first quarter of the year. At the same time, the company announced that it expected to see about $1 billion in savings this year from the integration of Alltel. The operator is also reported to have to shed some more Alltel assets.