Atlantic-Tele Network is having a very good day. The FCC has just approved their purchase of the former assets held by Alltel. ATN will purchase these assets from Verizon Wireless for $200 Million.
The assets include Assets, spectrum, and 800,000 subscribers.
Showing posts with label Department Of Justice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Department Of Justice. Show all posts
The Department of Justice had approved the merger between Alltel and Verizon. Conditions for the merger included the divestiture of 100 markets across 22 states.
“The divestitures required are necessary to protect wireless customers and are among the most extensive required by the department in a wireless case,” said Thomas Barnett, assistant attorney general in charge of the antitrust division.
The divested area includes the entire states of North and South Dakota. Additional cellular market areas will include parts of Colorado, Georgia, Kansas, Montana, South Carolina, Utah and Wyoming, and sections of Alabama, Arizona, California, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia.
The FCC is widely expected to also approve the merger with similar divestiture requirements. CellGeek will be live blogging this commission meeting on November 4th at 11 am. Please join us by going here.
Related Articles:
FCC: Alltel and Verizon's Final Hurdle Cleared
LiveBlog: FCC Decision for Alltel / Verizon Merger
FCC:Alltel Verizon Meeting Date Set
Verizon Voluntarily Offers To Divest 15 Additional Markets
Verizon Retains Morgan Stanley for Divestiture
Verizon has announced that the approval for their purchase of Rural Cellular Corp is official! Rural Cellular Corp operates under the brand Unicel, and is expanding Verizon's network by 625,000 customers. This gives Verizon access to covering an additional 4.7 million people within the newly acquired area. (Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Alabama, Mississippi, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Idaho, Washington and Oregon)
Verizon will begin to serve customers immediately while they implement CDMA digital technology, as well as EVDO high speed wireless broadband. Unicel's existing GSM structure will remain in place to be leveraged for partnered roaming revenues. Customers will be notified by letter in the next few weeks that the purchase has completed. The letter will explain the new options that they have for phones (for those impacted by network technology changes). The phone options will include phones that are free, or at low cost. No immediate action will be required by any customer. All Unicel stores will remain open to serve the needs of their customers, but will be branded Verizon in phases, as will the billing conversion. The conversion is expected to be completed mid-year 2009. Required divestitures as a condition of the approval have already been placed into a trust management account to be sold. These markets will operate under the Unicel brand until they are sold. These areas include rural licences from Vermont, New york, and parts of Washington. Wireless markets in southern Minnesota and western Kansas will also remain Unicel, as Verizon has already committed to voluntarily divest these areas with the acquisition of Alltel Wireless. At&t has already purchased licenses in Vermont.
Read the full release at Verizon Wireless
Verizon has gained approval from the FCC to aquire Rural Cellular Corp. Conditions for the approval require a divestiture of spectral assets and licenses in 6 cellular market areas. One in New York, two in Washington, and three in Vermont. The purchase expands Verizons coverage in the midwest, new england, south, and pacific northwest covering 716,000 people. Verizon spent $2.67 billion to aquire Rural Cellular.
Sent from my BlackBerry Smartphone provided by Alltel
The newest filing to the FCC reveals that Verizon has consented to divesting 54 cellular markets in 18 states to meet the concerns from the Department of Justice in regard to the merger with Alltel. The Department of Justice has also implicated roaming provisions that must accompany the divestiture. Public comment from the FCC is due tomorrow (July 25th). Pushing the merger through in a timely manner may prove to be difficult as the FCC board is now split equal Democrat and Republican chair holders. Verizon has also agreed that any company that currently has roaming agreements set with Alltel may keep them until the expiration of that agreement, and companies that have agreements with both Alltel and Verizon will be able to choose under what provisions they will keep until the termination of the contract. The FCC seems to have a very full plate this month concerning cellular. They are being lobbied from all directions by handset manufacturers and wireless carriers. The up-coming AWS-3 auction still is not finalized as they determine what the provisions will be in terms of open access, and weather they will continue with the auction as planned. The Rural cellular Association petitioned last week to have the spectrum cap reinstated. No doubt this petition was put into play because of fear on behalf of Rural Cellular Association the acquisition of Alltel will make them too large. Let us not forget Alltel being accused of blocking negotiation between Verizon and RCC a few years ago, in a deal that ultimately went south. RCA has many reasons to try to tie up the merger, but mostly I don't think that they want to see one company have the ability that will be given to Verizon with full control of the first National Network of this stature. We should know more information tomorrow if the public comment if favorable, then the merger should move quickly and jump all the hurdles with relative ease, otherwise Verizon and Alltel may be in for a fight to complete the approval process.
This article was edited for correction. The original article sited Rural Cellular Corp as petitioning the FCC when in reality it was supposed to have been Rural Cellular Association
Related Articles:
FCC: Alltel and Verizon's Final Hurdle Cleared
Department of Justice Approves Alltel / Verizon Merger
Live Blog: FCC Commission Meeting November 4th, 2008
Verizon Voluntarily Offers To Divest 15 Additional Markets
Alltel / Verizon Divestiture Map, and Future Coverage
