Alltel To Buy Midwest Wireless

nextel18 said:
well why not? doesnt matter if one does gsm and one does cdma.. we already saw it with nextel and sprint.. (iden and cdma)

they could do dual mode phones and things of that nature..

Who wants to run a duel technology network...even for a short time? I'm thinking the other major carriers have recognized this folly.

Im not saying that it couldn't happen, but someone gets paid alot of money to know that would be a stupid idea. It would just be insane and much too costly for T-Mobile to be able to do something like that.

tadams said:
Im not saying that it couldn't happen, but someone gets paid alot of money to know that would be a stupid idea. It would just be insane and much too costly for T-Mobile to be able to do something like that.

Sometimes I think our little friend likes to drop perfectly insane scenarios on top of us for kicks. Annoying, no?

our friends in canada, (telus) does the same thing with iden and cdma.

costly? well, tmobile has to spend money on doing many costly things.. ie increasing coverage, getting 3g spectrum and rolling out a 3g network.. this way they can just buy a company who already has a great footprint and possibily create some synergies..

it costs a lot of money to expand in any business, but one hopes to get a ROIC on it.

alltel has 75 million licensed pops with only 10 million customers..

it also looks like according to their balance sheet their wireless (property, plant and equipment) is 6.6 billion dollars.

(this also doesnt include their recent purchase)

Alltel is already building out a GSM network. It's something they adopted from the purchase of Western Wireless. Western Wireless genereated over % of their revenue from roamers.

another excellent point!!

so tmobile= gsm.
alltel= wants to be gsm..


tmobile= plenty of 1.9ghz
alltel= plenty of 850mhz

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tmobile+alltel= great marriage..

LOL, great way to put it!

a simple way of putting it.. lol.

nextel18 said:
a simple way of putting it.. lol.

A mindbogglingly, horrifyingly simple way of putting it.

Sprint has no long term plan on keeping the Nextel network running. Cingular has no long term plan on keeping TDMA running.

I'm sure that T-Mobile would not want to deal with "if you want to have roaming access with your phone, you must call us with the phone's serial number when you swap SIMs."

Not to say a deal couldn't happen, but if CDMA were running, it would not be under the T-Mobile brand.

nextel18 said:
well why not? doesnt matter if one does gsm and one does cdma.. we already saw it with nextel and sprint.. (iden and cdma)

they could do dual mode phones and things of that nature..

Well, the world is going either CDMA or GSM -- iden will fade away over time as has/is analog & TDMA. Midwest Wireless still runs some analog & TDMA along with CDMA. Transition into CDMA since the other two are dying technologies.

CDMA and GSM are nothing related at all, so if T-Mobile would buy Alltel, they'd almost have to rebuild the entire network which would cost so much $$ (and not work worth a damn).

Last I checked(which was a while ago), Nextel was already planning to make the move to CDMA by 2010, so the buyout from Sprint(which was avoiding a Verizon buyout, if you believe the stories that cameout shortly beforehand) only fast tracked the move to CDMA by a few years.

I don't think that Alltel would be moving to GSM for several reasons. The fact that they now have the largest pure data footprint(according to in-house maps) in the nation is one, and the fact that they are trying to compete with the big V in bringing EVDO and other, newer technologies to market faster on their CDMA network.

verizon wouldnt be allowed to buy out tmobile.. (they would be over the cap)

so what do you think of IF alltel buys tmobile or tmobile buying alltel?

why would it never happen? please ellaborate more..

nextel18 said:
verizon wouldnt be allowed to buy out tmobile.. (they would be over the cap)

so what do you think of IF alltel buys tmobile or tmobile buying alltel?

why would it never happen? please ellaborate more..

Here's more elaboration: It won't happen.

Alltel wouldn't buy them because they dont have the funds. Even if they could afford the Tmobile company itself, the network conversion or customer buyout would be too expensive. They would be spending billions of dollars on the company itself and billions more to switch the customers over to CDMA. Switching the network over is not an option since the only way to add spectrum is to purchase it at the FCC auctions when the have them. Basically they would have a bunch of GSM network that they would have to try and sell to some of the smaller GSM companies.

Tmobile wouldn't buy alltel for alot of the same reasons. Two different networks, cost, etc. etc. Their parent company isnt going to be willing to invest billions of dollars in a co...
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actually when alltel purchased western wireless they gained both cdma and gsm services. the spectrum is that alone, spectrum. alltel can definitely convert the gsm to cdma. spectrum has nothing to do w/ the technology, just the frequency the service provider uses

exactly what my thinking is with tmobile and alltel.

good point with the convert of the gsm to cdma and vice versa..

No, when a carrier wants to put up more towers in new areas, or convert existing towers to a differnt type they have to clear it and buy the liscense to use those frequencies in the area. Thats the whole reason the FCC has these auctions. If you bought say two towers, one CDMA and one GSM, you can still operate both as long as you dont change the way the towers operate or change the frequency they work on. If companies were free to do this as they pleased, then the airwaves would be chaos and interference would be so bad that you would never know what you were getting. True, when a company buys another, they also get the spectrum they are using, but they cant change it without approval from the FCC. So although they have both GSM and CD...
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"but they cant change it without approval from the FCC."

this is obvious..

you are saying things that obvious, my friend, but you can convert these types of spectrum quite easily..

for example..

you have contig spectrum of 800mhz of IDEN spectrum and you want to "transform" it into CDMA. if you have the spectrum in that area, you dont need to buy new spectrum.

another one..

you have 1.9ghz of spectrum.. you can either do GSM or CDMA or both..

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i think you are missing the point..

you can transform spectrum quite easily.. (and towers)

No I'm not missing the point. If you have that 800MHz spectrum of iDEN, you can't jsut convert it over to say 1900MHz CDMA. They reside in two completly different spectrums. The wole reason that they do these auction is because each area or market can only have so many providers in a given spectrum. If an area is at capacity for a given spectrum then you cant add more. Even if the towers are there, you cant just chage what they boradcast.

I'm not saying that they can't change at all. I'm saying that if company A uses technology Z and buys out Company B that uses technology G, they cant just change the G over to Z. They would have to buy spectrum in the Z frequencies before they change the G over to Z.

yea, you are missing the point..

i was saying if you have 800mhz spectrum and want to convert it into CDMA from IDEN it is quite easy.. not about from 800 to 1.9ghz.

if you have contig spectrum you can convert it.

anyway, since alltel wants to go to gsm (As mentioned in this forum as well as in their call) you can do it simply.. it is expensive and it does take a while but you can do it..

there are caps, but it seems like they are under the cap.. (but there will be divestitures with this merger. AT and midwest)

again.. if they have spectrum in a band and they are using the same band to go to gsm then they dont have to buy new spectrum.. (just have to tweak some things and create contig blocks and tweak the towers)

it...
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nextel18 said:
yea, you are missing the point..

i was saying if you have 800mhz spectrum and want to convert it into CDMA from IDEN it is quite easy.. not about from 800 to 1.9ghz.

if you have contig spectrum you can convert it.

anyway, since alltel wants to go to gsm (As mentioned in this forum as well as in their call) you can do it simply.. it is expensive and it does take a while but you can do it..

there are caps, but it seems like they are under the cap.. (but there will be divestitures with this merger. AT and midwest)

again.. if they have spectrum in a band and they are using the same band to go to gsm then they dont have to buy new spectrum.. (just have to tweak some things and create contig

...
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Alltel is not going GSM. Notice the new marketing campaign, they are investing millions into their CDMA network for it to be the best. An update into EvDO is not far off. They are not and will not go GSM as it will be a step backwards technologically.

Actually, Alltel is expanding in thier GSM holdings. They acquired GSM systems from PSC Wireless, Cingular Wireless (divestiture of AT&T Wireless), and most importantly Western Wireless. Western Wireless was contracted to provide GSM roaming coverage, and Alltel can't just shut off all GSM coverage because it wants to.

I'm not implying that Alltel is fully *converting* to GSM, but they are rapidly expanding their GSM overlay.

Look at Crapulars network. Now look at TMOs network. Notice that their networks are not huge. There are massive gaps in the western half of the country(hell, if Crapular was honest, they would show that they have massive gaps everywhere, but I won't be too mean to them, yet).

Those areas, once devloped, will be massive revenue generating machines for whoever gets there first, i.e. Alltel, and others.

Actually, Alltel must maintain GSM service from Western Wireless. Western Wireless was contracted to provide GSM roaming coverage to Cingular and T-Mobile, and Alltel must honor that contract. Plus, it's a significant amount of revenue, and it's in areas where thy system would not be overloaded. Ever thing you'll see a "System Busy" message in North Dakota?

very interesting opinion..

by the way $2billion isnt in the network.. (it has to do with the 3g spectrum)

what would they gain? well spectrum, towers, and a 10 million subscribers..

according to their balance sheet their wireless unit's assets are 6.6 billion dollars. i think this that is quite expensive but they could always do a cdma/gsm phone.

they dont have the money? well cingular didnt have the money to buy out att wireless.

tmobile needs to expand quickly though and to get alltel i think it would be good, especially since there could be overlaps and synergies..

it was just a thought, but well thought out argument and opinion on your behalf..

Cingular didn't have the money to buy out AT&T Wireless?

That's funny because I swear I remember hearing that it was a $42 billion purchase...all cash deal. And hey, doesn't look like they're going bankrupt anytime soon. 😉

ruff.

bell south and SBC borrowed money to help finance the purchase.. they didnt have it, becuase they borrowed it.

those sources are located in the annual reports of the 2 companies.. this is from SBC ...

" In October 2004, we
entered into a $12,000, 364-day revolving credit agreement
with certain investment and commercial banks to fund our
$21,600 equity contribution."

that is in billions also..

(so $12 billion and $21.6 billion.. they paid some in cash and BLS borrowed money too. they also used cingular's cash to help)

http://www.sbc.com/investor_relations/company_report ... »

Cash is cash. Nobody is going to loan out billions of dollars to Cingular (SBC and Bellsouth) unless they have the means of paying it back. They do.

nextel18 said:
" In October 2004, we
entered into a $12,000, 364-day revolving credit agreement
with certain investment and commercial banks to fund our
$21,600 equity contribution."

that is in billions also..

Actually, it is in millions. $12,000 * $1,000,000,000 =
12,000,000,000,000, which is more than the 41,000,000,000 that BellSouth and SBC paid for AT&T Wireless.

1,000,000,000 is a billion

sangyup81 said:
1,000,000,000 is a billion

Yes, but 1,000,000,000,000 is not one billion, it is 1000 x 1 billion. I was highlighting that he should have said "those numbers are in billions" when they should have been in millions. 1 billion 41,000 times is not what Cingular paid for AT&T Wireless, they paid 1 billion 41 times.

tropicalhaven said:

sangyup81 said:
1,000,000,000 is a billion

Yes, but 1,000,000,000,000 is not one billion, it is 1000 x 1 billion. I was highlighting that he should have said "those numbers are in billions" when they should have been in millions. 1 billion 41,000 times is not what Cingular paid for AT&T Wireless, they paid 1 billion 41 times.

Don't even bother, Tropical. He's cut from the exact same cloth as Nextel18.

i don't see alltel being purchased by anyone because they are looking to grow. they have now bought out 2 carriers in less then a year. they also currently cover more area then any other service provider(note i'm not saying population, i'm saying land area). finally they have an amazing roaming agreement w/ verizon that allows them to offer very competitive national plans(although that agreement ends in 07 i believe). i think the one thing that really hurts alltel is that they operate in very few large markets. I know of Jacksonville, FL and Oklamhoma City. Can anyone else fill me in on other large markets they serve?

as far as tmobile is concerned, i have no idea

ok then what about alltel purchasing tmobile from DT?

DT said that TMO is not for sale earlier this week I believe.

And Alltel operates in several of the top 100 markets in the country. The Norfolk market alone covers 6 mil, and the Richmond market covers 9. Plus all the areas in NC, SC, etc. Alltel is primed to become one of the big national players in a few years. I would expect them to be in the top 5 by 2012(to be honest I think it will be sooner, but market conditions may change).

The key player in all of this may be John Stanton former CEO of Western Wireless. Due to the sale of Western Wireless to Alltel he became the biggest single share holder in Alltel. He's also the person that sarted Voicestream wich became T-Mobile. He still has some ownership in T-Mobile USA. He still maintains and office in the old Western Wireless headquartes which happens to be next door to T-Mobile USA headquarters. We'll just have to wait and see.

yea, that is true..

but in your opinion, what do you think might happen between alltel and tmobile? (if anything)

It's hard to say. Alltel management is determined to grow. Very strong possibility that they'll spin off there wireline business. You wouldn't believe how much interaction there is between T-Mobile and the old Western Wireless, some of there offices are in the same building. Rumor has it that Stanton owns the buildings or at least some of the buildings that T-Mobile occupies.
T-Mobile definetly wants to saty independent. It would be costly for them to purchase Alltel, but it would let them keep up with the other big players.

well with buying tmobile usa they could grow too, especially the way tmobile has been doing.. granted they arent doing better then verizon or sprint on a qt by qt basis but they are doing quite well. cingular already has its flaws and are showing it from qt 4 of 2004 up till quarter 3 of 2005.

it is hard to say of course, but it is just an opinion... i wont laugh at ya with your opinion.. we know they are spinning off their wireline they mentioned it in the call.

tmobile wants to stay independant but many carriers and companies do and then they got purchased.. att wireless said they werent for sale then look cingular bought them... so that isnt very a fair argument.. lol.

if tmobile buys them out that would be very good, or vice...
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Well in AT&T case their management was inept at best. I think it's more likely that T-Mobile will buy Alltel than the other way around. T-Mobile has more money becuase of their parent company. T-Mobile has been making great strides in customer service and consumer recognition, Alltel is still viewed as a regional carrier.

yea.. well i meant either or..

alltel buying tmobile usa from DT or DT (tmobile usa) buying out alltel.

the point is you spend to grow.. (that is business)


"-Mobile has more money becuase of their parent company. T-Mobile has been making great strides in customer service and consumer recognition, Alltel is still viewed as a regional carrier."

very true!

I mean, noone's thought of that possibility?

tropicalhaven said:
Yeah, and AT&T Wireless and Cingular dealt with many headaches with GAIT phones, including a lot of customer service about why sometimes the phones wouldn't work when you swapped the SIMs. There were also roaming issues that had to be worked out. I don't think it would be in the best interest of the shareholders of any carrier to pay for a system where features are not universal.

ATTWS and Cingular have had enough trouble integrating their GSM networks...and everybody thinks iDen and CDMA will be easy? Please.