Verizon to buy Alltel

Alright folks; it’s official. Verizon Wireless has stated that it will buy Alltel for $28.1 billion. Verizon has made a deal according to which it will pay $5.9 billion to Alltel to acquire its equity and assume a whopping $22.2 billion of its debt.

This acquisition will make Verizon Wireless the biggest cellular operator in the U.S. Verizon has 66.8 million subscribers now and by acquiring Alltel, it will add another 13.2 million to its subscriber base, thereby making it 80 million subscribers in total. The current number one operator, AT&T, has around 72 million subscribers.

An interesting aspect to this deal is, Alltel is probably the only company in the corporate history of America to have changed ownership so quickly. Last year, Alltel was acquired by the Texas Pacific Group and the private equity arm of Goldman Sachs for a similar price. This year, it has been acquired by Verizon.

Expectedly, this news has not made a big splash in the market as everyone and his mom knew that this was on the cards. This acquisition tale has been going on for years now and finally, it is official. If you remember, Verizon was actually keen to acquire Alltel last year, but Vodafone, its wireless partner, rejected the deal. But then, Verizon has managed to get what it wanted.

I think this is a perfect set up for Verizon for two reasons. First, both Alltel and Verizon use the same technology – CDMA. Second, Alltel has a good subscriber base in areas which are not covered by Verizon currently. So, it will extend Verizon’s network coverage platform. What do you think?

Categories: All things mobile phones.

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Blyk to enter the Dutch market

Few people in the world will be as happy as Pekka Ala Pietila and Antti Ohrling, the founders of Blyk. Blyk, the well known ad-funded mobile phone network, is planning to expand its territory into the Dutch market and has laid a strong foundation for that in the form of additional funding from Goldman Sachs and Kuwait’s Industrial Financial Investments Company.

Both Goldman Sachs and Industrial Financial Investments Company think Blyk has a great chance in the Dutch market and have provided with a large additional funding to support its operations. Not just that, both these companies have also got a considerable stake in Blyk, which makes Blyk even stronger financially.

In case you don’t know, Blyk stormed into the limelight by offering free text messages and free talk time to customers who opted to receive mobile adverts in their mobile phones. Blyk will host its mobile phone network in the Netherlands through Vodafone. The service is expected to be launched later this year.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, Blyk.

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