MetroPCS and Leap worry cellco giants as AWS auction nears end
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Range wars The US auction of AWS (Advanced Wireless Services) spectrum in the 1.7GHz and 2.1GHz bands is finally drawing to a close, raising a likely $14bn for the government in the sale of the largest block of spectrum (1,112 licenses) offered by the FCC regulator.â¦
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Reports that Sprint Corp. may be close to a $36 billion takeover of Nextel Communications Inc. yesterday alarmed consumer advocates, who predicted it would
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Smaller cellphone companies are feeling pressures from national carriers entering rural areas now that urban markets are saturated.
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Leap Wireless, the wireless company behind the Cricket and Jump Mobile brands, said Sunday that it will reject an unsolicited acquisition offer from competitor MetroPCS.
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(InfoWorld) - Strong corporate financials, eager venture capital, a liberal lending environment, and markets in transition continue to inspire buyouts and acquisitions in the IT world with Avaya and Palm beingÂ just two of the high-profile targets this week. The transition to new technology in telecom and the Web in particular opens up opportunities for vendors. Network equipment manufacturerÂ Avaya announced a dealÂ for a $8.2 billion cash buyout by private equity firms TPG Capital and Silver Lake Partners on Monday. "We are starting to see more of this kind of public-firm-going-private. We've seen this with Alltel most recently and cable television companies as well," said telecom analyst Jeff Kagan. Last month, TPG and Goldman Sachs Group's private equity unitÂ bought mobile service company AlltelÂ for $27.5 billion. The Avaya deal will allow it to make a potentially costly transition from legacy TDM products to IP technology without having to worry about the quarter-to-quarter bottom line. The timing of the deal was good. Avaya shares have been doing well lately, so the buyout gives shareholders top dollar. Avaya shares rose $0.31 to close at $17.02 Tuesday. "Avaya obtained an impressive value for shareholders," said Morgan Keegan analyst Tavis McCourt. Private equity firmÂ Elevation Partners' acquisition of 25 percent of PalmÂ also caused investors to cheer. Palm rose $1.48 to close at $17.57 Monday. Palm gets a $325 million investment and also several industry leaders: Jon Rubinstein, former senior vice president of hardware engineering and head of the iPod division at Apple, as well as Apple's former CFO, Fred Anderson. It is widely hoped that Rubinstein will be able to spark new ideas at Palm, which is suffering from competition against device makers Research In Motion and Nokia. Palm last week announced the Foleo, pitched as a mobile device "companion" product, but IT investors are waiting for more of a breakthrough device for the company's aging product line. In other acquisition news,Â Flextronics International said Monday it will acquire SolectronÂ for $3.6 billion. Flextronics said the deal will streamline product development and supply chain management and create an electronics manufacturing giant with more than $30 billion in annual revenue. But Flextronics slipped $0.16 to close at $11.54 on the news. Traders sometimes dump shares of acquiring companies when deals are suspected to have a negative impact on financials. Investment firm Hilliard Lyons downgraded its rating on Flextronics from "buy" to "underperform." Meanwhile, telecom-equipment maker UTStarcom dropped $0.80 to $6.51 after announcing Monday that it had done a strategic review and decided not to seek a buyout or merger. Though new technology may bring more opportunities, it may take a while before new products and services generate significant revenue for vendors. Almost halfway through the year, moderate growth is still anticipated for global IT in 2007 and recent surveys suggest that corporate spending may be even softer than had been expected. AÂ survey from ChangeWave Research released last week, for example, reported that the percentage of companies planning to increase their spending has fallen to its lowest point in the last four years. In this environment, where capital is available but market growth is slow, IT is bound to see buyouts and acquisitions continue.
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The Motley Fool - If things keep going the way they are right now, soon there won't be any North American options available when the next developing market needs to install current-generation cell phone infrastructure.
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AT&amp;T and Verizon Wireless want to go up against other current mobile operators and some possible future competitors, including Google, in next month&#39;s&#160;auction for 700MHz wireless spectrum&#160;around the U.S.
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Major mobile voice and data carriers in the United States have pledged to open their networks to outside handsets and applications, but regulators and customers need to be vigilant to make sure those promises are fulfilled, one member of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission said.Carriers including AT&amp;T and Verizon Wireless have promised to open up their networks, but the FCC will need to watch the prices that carriers charge customers who bring their own devices to the networks, said the FCC&#39;s Michael Copps, speaking Tuesday at a New America Foundation forum. The FCC will also need to monitor the complexity of certification for new devices and applications, he said.Mobile carriers still dictate what features can be used on most phones, with Wi-Fi features unavailable on most U.S. mobile phones because of carrier opposition, Copps said. The FCC needs &quot;trust but verify&quot; the open network promises from the carriers, Copps said.&quot;I hope it is as good as it sounds,&quot; he added. The FCC should step in if the carriers don&#39;t live up to their promises, Copps added.Carriers have in recent months taken steps to block text messages and some types of applications, Copps added. They need to pledge to &quot;no blocking, no locking, and no discriminatory degradation of service,&quot; he said.Copps, a Democrat, seemed to disagree with the FCC&#39;s Republican chairman Kevin Martin, who was quoted in The New York Times as saying the issue of open networks has &quot;melted away&quot; as AT&amp;T, Verizon Wireless, and other carriers have moved to open their networks.Advocates have been pushing for customers to be able to take their mobile devices from carrier to carrier for about a year. Weeks after&#160;Google announced its Open Handset Alliance&#160;in November,&#160;Verizon Wireless announced it would open its network&#160;to outside devices and applications by the end of this year.About a week after the Verizon announcement, AT&amp;T announced that it&#39;s long been its policy to allow outside devices and applications onto its mobile network.But Copps and critics of the carriers said Tuesday it&#39;s too early to tell if the carriers are serious about open networks. For example, mobile carriers could discourage customers from bringing their own devices by charging higher prices, Copps said.Carriers have often argued that they need to sign up customers using lengthy contracts because they&#39;re subsidizing the cost of a mobile phone. But if customers bring their own phones, there&#39;s no carrier subsidy, so&#160;the plan should cost less, said Robert Frieden, a professor of telecommunications and law at Penn State University.Right now, &quot;you don&#39;t get a discount for bringing your own phone,&quot; said Frieden, author of a New America Foundation paper calling on the FCC to regulate open network access.Some of the same companies pledged to offer stand-alone DSL service more than three years ago, and in many cases, customers have to fight through layers of customer service to get DSL without accompanying wireline phone service, added Christopher Libertelli, senior director for regulatory and government affairs at Skype.A Skype handset that allows calls to be made over Wi-Fi or a mobile network is available in parts of Europe and in Hong Kong but not the United States because carriers have opposed it, he said.&quot;Sitting here, we can&#39;t predict how these press release will turn into real consumer rights,&quot; Libertelli said.But representatives of Verizon Wireless, AT&amp;T, and T-Mobile said they were serious about offering customers choices of devices and applications.Verizon Wireless wants to encourage new types of devices and work with developers and handset makers to create innovation, said Anthony Lewis, vice president of the company&#39;s Open Development Initiative. &quot;This will not work if I dictate to my customers,&quot; he said.AT&amp;T will monitor devices for bandwidth hogging and security, but otherwise, the company is open to outside devices, said Robert Quinn Jr., AT&amp;T&#39;s senior vice president for federal regulatory affairs. AT&amp;T customers want to be able to use more devices on the network, he said.Asked, however, if AT&amp;T would unlock Apple&#39;s iPhone to use on other networks, Quinn said the company couldn&#39;t do that.
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The head of the Federal Communications Commission expressed concern on Tuesday that the credit crunch could hinder bidders in an upcoming government auction of wireless airwaves.
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The $35 billion merger of Sprint and Nextel announced Wednesday may make consumers jittery about rising prices in a consolidating industry, but experts say the remaining players will still wage a tough fight for every customer.
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Deal with Elevation Partners means shareholders will get a chunk of cash, but the smart-phone maker will be taking on debt.
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With last week&#39;s $35 billion merger deal between Sprint and Nextel looming, agents and solution providers are taking stock of their relationships with service providers.
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Lack of bidders forces largest US local telephone companies to terminate efforts in small markets. NEW YORK  - Verizon Communications Inc.
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Wall Street was abuzz Friday over a potential merger between Sprint and Nextel, though the companies declined to comment on a slew of news reports that they are negotiating to combine to create a celluar provider that would almost rival Cingular Wireless
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Enterprise software vendors are having their last hurrah at customer expense.  But not for long.
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'You don't do contracts. I don't do contracts. Let's get it on.' MetroPCS wants to buy Leap Wireless, intent on creating one big we-don't-do-contacts wireless carrier. And it wants the world to know it wants to buy Leap Wireless. But there's no telling what Leap wants.â¦
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Cingular Wireless LLC, AT&amp;T Wireless Services Inc. and AT&amp;T Corp. reported an agreement resolving issues related to the use of the AT&amp;T brand in connection with Cingularâs pending acquisition of AWS, as