December 14, 2004

Verizon Got Approval to Bid for Sprint

Wall Street Journal and Reuters are reporting that Verizon got approval from its partner Vodafone to make a bid for Sprint. This may throw a wrench into Sprint's impending $35 billion merger with Nextel. Vodafone however wants to keep their stake at 45% in any future combined entity. So Vodafone will also have to pony up tens of billions of dollars to stay at the table.

Technically it would be a much cleaner combination as both Sprint and Verizon use CDMA as their platform. The bid however may be weeks away as Verizon needs to decide how much to bid and what to do with Sprint's land-line business. Moreover there are anti-trust concerns, as the combined company would have 1/3 of the U.S. market.

As a Sprint subscriber who is quite happy with their low prices, I'm not looking forward to paying Verizon rates any time soon.