There are rumors going around that Alltell Wireless is for sale and is already in talks with several of it’s rivals. And although I could not track down any offical statement from any of it’s rivals the word on the street is Alltell is for sale.
“Although Alltel Wireless is only the nation’s fifth-largest mobile phone company when you consider the number of subscribers, they have done an excellent job catering to rural and low-population areas that are sometimes snubbed by the bigger names. Maybe that’s not enough. Alltel Wireless is apparently looking for a buyer and they have already had discussions with “all its larger rivals.”
As Alltel is CDMA-based, it would make the most sense for Alltel to team up with Sprint or Verizon, though a partnership, merger, or outright purchase is not out of the cards for T-Mobile or the former Cingular (AT&T) either. One of the major speed bumps to a potential deal, however, is that Alltel is worth too much: “the mobile carrier is valued at almost $22 billion, a number sure to rise if takeover talk persists.”
If Sprint-Nextel or Verizon Communications were to purchase Alltel, they would gain the country’s largest wireless network based on geographical footprint. This is a huge asset, naturally, and one that is worth considering.”
Alltel Is an American Telecommunnications company with headquarters in the Riverdale neighborhood of Little Rock, Arkansas. Alltel provides wireless services to residential and business customers in 36 states.With a market cap of $24.79 billion and over 15 million customers as of early 2006, Alltel is the largest regional mobile phone company in America, and the fifth largest mobile phone company overall. The wireless group provides service in parts of 37 states. The company mainly focuses on small to medium-sized cities, but has low-cost roaming agreements with the major national CDMA carriers, especially Verizon Wireless and Sprint-Nextel, in order to provide national service. Reciprocal agreements in turn provide those carriers with coverage in rural areas. When Alltel acquired Western Wireless in 2005, it also gained a large GSM footprint as well. While it does not offer GSM service to its own customers, Alltel has indicated that it will continue to maintain the GSM footprint (and perhaps even expand it) to provide roaming service to GSM users of other wireless carriers. Alltel advertises itself as “owner and operator of the nation’s largest wireless network”; this claim refers to geographical coverage of its network rather than number of Alltel customers or population covered. The company prides itself on delivering results that maximize shareholder value.