Today, 11:37 AM 12-14-04 source: Wall Street Journal / AP via Forbes

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Vodafone has given Verizon Wireless the green-light to make a bid to buy Sprint. Vodafone owns 45% of Verizon Wireless. Such a bid could disrupt final negotiations for a merger between Sprint and Nextel, a deal that is tentatively scheduled to be announced tomorrow in New York. Verizon Communications has been studying a potential Sprint takeover for 18 months, but even with the nod from Vodafone, it is not clear if Verizon will go ahead with the bid. A successful acquisition of Sprint would return Verizon Wireless to the #1 spot, with 65 million customers, after being unseated two months ago when Cingular absorbed AT&T Wireless.

 

damn...i think verizon should buy nextel.....that would be a kick ass carrier

 

at least verizon would have a 2 way system that actually works

 

verizon and sprint would make more sense since they are both cdma

sprint and nextel, i dunno how they are gonna make that work

 

whoa... Verizon + Sprint... that'd be fine with me too

 

that would be tight.... my dad will be happy since he has a crapload of Verizon stock... blang blang

 

I think it should be, Nextel buy Sprint, than buy Verizon....

 

i dont know where you get your wireless information but it is the most ass backwards stuff i have ever read. nextel is being bought out by sprint, and now verizon might buy out sprint. nextel is not purchasing anyone, they are getting kicked off their frequencies and being upgraded to cdma most likely.

 

I'd hate for my Sprint phone to become Verizon. Most of my friends have switched from Verizon to Cingular recently due to the absoultely terrible customer service, boring phones and ho-hum plans from Verizon.

I'd definitely switch to Cingular if that happened

 

good thing VERIZON WIRELESS is privatley owned and does not have any stock..

 

he didnt say verizon wireless, he said verizon which is a publically owned company.

 

I wouldn't mind Verizon expanding.

Interesting. I've always thought that Verizon offer the best cutsomer service. They were among the first to have a Customer and Technical service counter for people to go to. It's only recently that I've noticed that all the lesser brand have started to have a customer service counter w/in their stores. I tend to think that Verizon phones choices, however "bland", tend to last longer than the current trend. It sure costs money to be a Verizon customer, but I get great service and a clear connection anywhere. Never got that with Sprint. But perhaps it's all dependent upon the region that you're in?

 

For, my roomate was always the biggest Verizon proponent. He recommended it to everyone and always tried to get me to convert. He said that he and his gf over the past few months have had very bad experiences with customer support (new contract prices and a broken phone) and finally decided he had enough and moved to Cingular.

Lastly, in regards to coverage, I'll definitely admit Sprint was pretty poor a few years back, but I have no complaints now. In the CT & NY area, I rarely encounter an area where I lose a signal. The only service left that lags behind in this area is T-Mobile. I can drive from Manhattan to Fairfield CT on I-95 without ever dropping a signal, but all people I know that have Verizon service drops their call on I-95 in Greenwich CT (regardless of phone).

Lastly, I like the fact Sprint is independent and I hope it stays that way. I think 3 strong competitors is a good # (Cingular, Verizon, Sprint-Nextel)

 

which would have absolutely nothing to do with the buy out

 

who owns t-mobile?

why wouldn't verizon buy t-mobile, and spint + nextel... or some other combination to compete with at&t + cingular?

 

t-mo is gsm and verizon is cdma, but i guesss if iden and cdma can do it why can't they

 

upgrading iden to cdma is a lot easier then upgrading gsm to cdma, if tmobile goes it will be cingular

 

I don't see Deutch Telecom selling t-mobile, but since they get such a small share of their profits from the US it might work for them.

 

there is really no incentive for them to stay in the market anymore, after the sprint/nextel merger there will only really be 3 big carriers. tmobile wont even be half the size of the 3rd largest and i would assume as time goes on people will start to switch from them to one of the larger carriers. it most likely wont happen for another year or two, but eventually it will happen. this merger is going to make it difficult for verizon if they decide to buy out sprint down the road.