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When Verizon announced its purchase of Alltel earlier this year, talks of antitrust began circulating. This acquisition would give the nation’s current No. 2 wireless carrier full market share in a number of regions, something that local residents tend to fear. We want choice. When the choices were merely Alltel and Verizon before, it was bad enough. Now, customers could be left with just one option, and that’s not going to sit well. Thankfully, it doesn’t sit well with the Department of Justice, either. They’ve met with Verizon, and it looks like Verizon could divest in 85 markets to get this deal done, according to Fawn Johnson of Down Jones Newswires.
The list of markets in which they propose to divest, including all of North and South Dakota along with parts of 16 other states, is just preliminary, according to the company. This sounds like a typical negotiation, where Verizon comes in with a lowball offer. The FCC and DoJ will probably look at the offer and add additional markets.
If you’re on a small, regional carrier which has a roaming agreement with either Alltel or Verizon, you seem to be safe. Verizon said that carriers which roam with Alltel will continue to roam with the new network. Companies that roam with both Verizon and Alltel can pick the better agreement and stick with it. That, of course, will only last until the agreement expires. We’ll see what happens at that point.
While this is expected news, it comes as good news. In the end, Verizon might have a bit more power than is ideal, but at least they are in the process of divesting in areas in which they would have obvious monopolies.
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