Alltel Wireless will be far more competitive following the $27 billion buyout by divisions of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) and Texas Pacific Group.
How fast will Alltel be able to scale its customer base and compete with the big four wireless companies? Much faster as a private company if you ask me.
Without quarterly numbers to hit, the company can pour capital into becoming what it has the potential to be and at some future time re-enter the market for the payoffs for GS Capital Partners and TPG Group. Until then, we'll all see what Alltel can do to compete with the larger carriers over time. With this buyout probably having been in the works for most of 2007, you can bet a solid plan is already in place.
With 12 million customers. Alltel is the fifth-largest wireless company behind AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T), Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) and T-Mobile USA. It owns wireless liceneses giving it coverage area bigger than the larger four carriers, which is a huge attraction for the private equity firms who already are drawn to the red-hot wireless industry.
The upside is great for this deal since people are dropping land line telephones and moving to the wireless and Internet telephony.
Now it's time to execute.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-21-2007 @ 1:04PM
Darryel said...
As a long time ALTEL customeer and a past customer of other wireless providers I can say that the difference is significant. The prices at ALTTEL are MUCH better for the services provided and the reliability cannot be beat. It should only be a matter of time (relatively short time) before ALTEL overtakes all of the other wireless providers. SERVICE counts!
5-21-2007 @ 3:38PM
Tom said...
While it is true that AllTel has a bigger geographical footprint than the other big wireless players, it does not have the population numbers that the others have. Coverage area is great, but people need to live there so the carrier has someone to sell to.
5-22-2007 @ 9:58AM
Kenny Bouy - Naples said...
Alltel seemed to mostly quit capitalizing infra-structure 2 yrs ago when they started putting it on the auction block...they are so far behind in what biz wants, ev-do, connectivity, networking....may be fine for farmers in Podunk, IA..but last choice for most anyone needing timely technological communications.
5-28-2007 @ 10:14PM
Tom Whitacre said...
Ever get a bill from Alltel? Yes, coverage is good but major monthly billing problems & time consuming frustrating fixes are not what this customer could tolerate. I work for another carrier, my wife had Alltel. She switched after dozens of billing issues & got a phone with the company I work for. No more billing issues. Life is good.
6-14-2007 @ 12:13PM
Ray said...
Alltel is by far the wireless carrier that knows how to manage their dollar on topof dollar. Other carriers have wasted money and wasted money and the customers pay for those bad decisions. Now that ALLTEL will have some serious capital to work with, the other carriers had better take notice. ALLTEL will get more bang for their buck than any other carrier and I expect ALLTEL to make a serious run to become a major factor that other carriers will have to deal with for a long time. I have ALLTEL and the only drawback is that they are not in more major markets but I look for that to change with the equity firms proving much needed cash to become a serious player in this competitive industry.