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U.S. Cellular Being Pressured by Investors to Sell

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Very Disturbing

Azeron

Mar 13, 2009, 8:46 AM
I wonder who these investors think would be interested in purchasing U.S. Cellular at this time? Verizon is out...the feds would never allow them to keep all of the assets. AT&T and T-Mobile but they would have to convert the CDMA to GSM unless they wait four or five years for U.S. Cellular to convert to LTE first. But these guys making a power play is akin to a football player demanding a trade. Now the buyers know that a deal must be done and they will low ball the company thinking they have the upper hand. If only a third party walked in and purchased U.S. Cellular, Sprint (CDMA) and divested Alltel kept the U.S. Cellular or Alltel name (Sprint's is MUD at this point) then maybe it would make sense. Highly unlikely though. I quest...
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ecmark00

Mar 13, 2009, 9:24 AM
This is very interesting. I suspect that the stock holders have come to a conclusion that they can no longer compete and want out of the market.

Alltel and USC pretty much had the same phones, and now that Alltel is gone, the price of their equipment will rise. There is now no competition in roaming. Also with VZW implementing Friends and Family plan, that puts a dagger into any real impact free incoming has. And finally, USC customer base is not after the data usage. Its the coverage and cheaper plants. LTE will be costly to implement and its something they will need to do to stay in competition for the long haul.
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knoxvegas75

Mar 13, 2009, 9:42 AM
The minority stock holder is mad that there was not public disclosure of a so called offer from a big carrier in 2007. It is because of this that they are asking for a clear strategy for the years to come or to sell off and receive a prime price.

The problem is this is not the time for a prime offer.

I agree that verizon is making moves to compete with US Cellular as far as value included with the plan but are still more expensive and have less value to most wireless consumers. And thats with friends and family.

LTE is the key to this entire story with that investment for US Cellular you will see an opening to be purchased become wide open. The FCC might even be more relaxed to it by then.
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Evali

Mar 13, 2009, 9:54 AM
I think it would be a good move for Sprint to pick them up. I know it would be costly and I know that Sprint is using WiMax and not LTE. However Sprint is looking at the possibility of running a WiMax/LTE network mainly focused at business but with this Acquisition it would give Sprint a much needed grasp on a chance to bring it back to the top and actually become the driving force of the CDMA world like it was some 5 years ago.

Samsung and Nokia are both currently working on dual mode 4g devices so its not out of the question
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knoxvegas75

Mar 13, 2009, 9:27 AM
I think that a third party would be the only strategy available at this current stage too. Although unlikely it is a possibility. It would have to be a large enough company with financial backing. (Comcast, Time Warner, Clearwire,or independent financing.)

I still don't think the 52% voting rights that are held by the Carlson family will be given away very easily or at all.

The time i see for US Cellular to be a prime target for merger or acquisition would come with the deployment of LTE. This would allow more players and a larger bid price for investors.

I think that a clear strategy to push out the rest of EVDO and then move directly to Launching LTE and continuing to drive profits through data will suffice the complaints ...
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mobilemadness

Mar 21, 2009, 12:43 AM
US Cellular isn't known for being cutting edge regarding technology. They only have about 20% of their customer base covered by EVDO and that is right now in 2009. There is no way they will spend several tens or even hundreds of millions building out EVDO only to turn around and build LTE immediately after wards. They didn't build out EVDO years ago because there wasn't as many cool data things at the time like Blackberrys and i-phones, etc. Now they are stuck. They are really too late to build out EVDO and spend all that money constructing a soon to be obsolete network, but too early to build LTE since it's so new. Even Verizon hasn't started building out LTE, so there would be no way USC would start ahead of a larger company. And if ...
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JeffdaBeat

Mar 13, 2009, 9:27 AM
I don't like where this is going. I know mergers and acquisitions happen, but the Alltel merger with Verizon left a bad taste in my mouth. I keep wondering how far this will go with the larger providers eating up the smaller ones. There has to be competition out there. I think a private firm would have to come in for this one. Sprint probably won't buy them because they are trying to pay off debt. T-Mobile has rich parents, but there is a compatibility issue. Same with AT&T. And I don't think Verizon will be able to purchase anyone at this point...

Also, my thinking is because of the huge purchase of Alltel, there will be no buying the big four unless one of them is just out of money. Sprint isn't going to be purchased by anyone at this ...
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knoxvegas75

Mar 13, 2009, 9:34 AM
I agree the financial crisis has meet the wireless industry as well. It begs the next question will these cellular companies be able to continue to find more suiters for their ever so mounting debt.

Sprint, AT&T and Verizon all have billions (yes there is that word again) in debt. The alltel deal alone cost vzw over 20 billion alone. With banks and other financial institutions tightening up I wonder if one wont be able to make it and will be force to sell. (Sprint)

Just a thought
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phonenerd24

Mar 13, 2009, 11:14 AM
yes, unlike most of the large players. US Cellular does not have a ton of debt and is more conservative with its spending. O how great would it be if sprint of verizon had to start selling to pay off their debt.

US Cellular would pick those up and the tables would suddenly turn to our favor...

thats just an illusion at this point tho. but still cool to think ha?
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knoxvegas75

Mar 13, 2009, 3:18 PM
Yes it would be a great site to see, and not neccessarly a far fetch idea. I mean vzw owes over 25billion now and we know how hard it is to get a loan even for big business.
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en102

Mar 15, 2009, 12:51 PM
AT&TM, VZW, and T-Mobile have rich parent companies

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/co?s=T »
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jskrenes

Mar 13, 2009, 10:31 AM
This would be the PERFECT time for US Cellular to grow! If it picked up most of the VZW/Alltel divestures, it could be a significantly large carrier. It is relatively immune from being bought out right now: Sprint doesn't have the capital, Verizon has too much (and besides, they would have to divest most of it anyway), ATT and TMob are incompatible, at least until LTE hits.
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U.S. Cell

Mar 13, 2009, 12:41 PM
Okay, first of all... there is no way that Sprint has the resources to purchase U.S. Cellular... they're pretty much bankrupt... and with Sprint aquiring Nextel a few years back put a huge monkey wrench in their network... hence why they report continual losses of customers each quarter.... The investors are putting this pressure to push out EVDO and the LTE technology that Verizon claims to have by 2010. U.S. Cellular is one the only carriers left that actually care about their customers and measure the company by quality of service rather then quanity....
U.S. Cellular is not in trouble financialy since they post profits each quarter... Yes they need to step up their game in the Data field but in no way are in trouble any other way... Thi...
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dave73

Mar 14, 2009, 4:48 AM
I don't want to see USCC sold at all. I just wished that had a merger taken place, that it would have been between Alltel & USCC. That didn't happen. USCC does have a chance to acquire some divested markets to grow some. But AT&T is gonna get most of the divested markets.

If Sprint could afford to make any buyouts, they would only go after USCC's PCS spectrum, and not their cellular spectrum, as they don't like lower band frequencies. Also, we have to factor in iPCS, as they overlap in a lot of USCC markets. Sprint would either have to buyout iPCS at this point, or divest USCC in iPCS markets.

T-Mobile doesn't seem to like lower band frequencies either, but it's more that they don't like rural markets, and make every effort to a...
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Azeron

Mar 14, 2009, 4:25 PM
Sprint screwed up when they purchased Nextel. They should have bought Alltel or better yet sold to Scott Ford when Alltel wanted to buy Sprint. I find myself rooting for Sprint, though. I guess I like the underdog...and if they aren't the Detroit Lions of the wireless industry then I don't know who is.
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Azeron

Mar 14, 2009, 4:22 PM
It sounds as though you know everything about it. I was only reacting to the article. I don't want them to sell out.
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mobilemadness

Mar 21, 2009, 12:11 AM
US Cellular is the only regional player left in a national player field. They only have service in select areas and aren't expanding their network into new areas. They have stagnated. I don't think Verizon is a potential buyer since they have huge coverage areas with their new LTE 700Mhz license they won in '07 and their Alltel purchase. They don't need USCC anymore to fill in any gaps. Sprint can barely run their own company let alone take over another and they are broke. That leaves 2 GSM carriers. T-Mobile would be a great fit since both companies are customer service oriented and adding 6 million customers would help boost their marketshare with the other 3. But T-mobile has to invest a lot into their own network to get up to par ...
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