It is my intuition that MetroPCS and/or Cricket will be acquired by Alltel.

How did I arrive at this conclusion?

1. Alltel has a comprehensive nationwide roaming agreement with Sprint, which was a wireless industry first. Their agreement Allowed Alltel customers to roam on the Sprint network in major metro areas and Sprint customers to roam on Alltel in rural areas.

2. However, the next step in negotiations, an EVDO roaming agreement, never went anywhere, they stalled in 2005. Maybe things aren't all cheery between Sprint and Alltel.

3. Sprint is tanking, it's bleeding customers and racking up massive debt on it's ill-fated 4G "Xohm" network.

4. Alltel will want to retain it's access to major metro areas and even expand EVDO coverage there.

5. Guess who's rolling out EVDO coverage in major metro areas? MetroPCS and Cricket.