Verizon Wireless acquired Rural Cellular Corporation
Verizon Wireless has purchased Rural Cellular Corporation for $2.67 billion in both cash and assumed debt. As of March 31, 2007 Rural Cellular had just about 716,000 customers across Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, Massachusetts, Alabama, Mississippi, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Kansas, Idaho, Washington and Oregon. This deal will bring Verizon’s customer base up to more than 700,000 customers. The sale is officially expected to close in the first half of 2008.
Rural Cellular currently uses both CDMA and GSM technology across its customer base. Verizon Wireless has said it plans to deploy CDMA service into Rural Cellular’s GSM markets and convert all customers over to CDMA. They have also stated that the current GSM networks will remain in place to help serve the roaming needs for other GSM carriers.
Read [SlashPhone]
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Some may be interested to know that Verizon’s CEO and Rural Cell’s CEO are both currently on the board of CTIA, which probably explains how these companies got together. NewsVisual has an article up that illustrates this big connection: http://www.newsvisual.com/newsvisual/2007/07/verizonrural-ce.html
on August 1, 2007 at 12:48 AM - LINKIt just goes to show you how easy it is to create something that uses the internet as it’s primary data transporter that is worth a hell of a lot of money if it works. You can then sell it for a somewhat unbelievable amount a few short years later.
on March 17, 2008 at 05:29 PM - LINK