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It’s finally official. Verizon Wireless will soon become the largest wireless carrier in the US when it finalizes its acquisition of Alltel. The last regulatory obstacle standing in the way of the Verizon-Alltel deal has been hurdled with the US Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) approval of the deal.
With the FCC and US DoJ already on board with Verizon’s plan to buy-out Alltel, the FTC’s decision was all that stood between Verizon Wireless and the No. 1 US wireless spot. The FTC’s antitrust regulators have agreed to terminate their evaluation of the Verizon Wireless deal’s possible antitrust implications, which indicates that the commission has no objections to the deal.
Verizon Wireless will be paying $5.9 billion and assuming $22.2 billion of Alltel’s debt.
Verizon Wireless now has a clear path to acquiring Alltel. But, given the FTC’s late-year approval announcement, Verizon Wireless will likely have to wait until early 2009 to finalize their deal and become the nation’s largest wireless carrier, by subscriber count.
[Via: AP]
About The Author
Will Park
Will hails from The City of Angels - Los Angeles, California. He spends his time playing with his numerous gadgets and looking forward to seeing what future holds for mobile technology. An avid promoter of a fully "digital" life, he promotes the widespread adoption of truly mobile, paper-less living. He dreams of the day when he can go completely digital. No more snail mail, paper receipts, bound books, notepads/spiral notebooks, credit cards, hard currency. He's a digital warrior - fighting for the converged life. He is an idealist and a realist - he has a perfect view of what the world should be but knows that the world is not perfect. Can we ever hope to see Will's dream become reality? We'll see...
