Very interesting what you mentioned in your first reply. Do you think ultimately that all or most of the smaller players would either face chapter 11 or merge together to try to go against the big four? I think Metro/Leap has a very good business model but more importantly very good coverage pops in the less penetrated market, which is great for them. If the other carriers see a threat they would probably does something to either quiet them or join them.

Yes I believe they would band together, at least a few of them. They recognize the stranglehold that the big 4 companies have on the future of wireless. It is band together or hang separately in the end. How soon that end comes is the biggest question. I would love to see leap/metro, alltel, and uscc get together.....although I would like to see alltel be really active in the 700mhz auction even more. It's better then getting spectrum in the aws auction because it is far less costly to build out, and will be great for a carrier to just enter a market because capacity isn't as big of a concern. I think Alltel has been very hesitant to even try to get pcs spectrum/licenses in most parts of the country for this very reason.

themps said:
Yes I believe they would band together, at least a few of them. They recognize the stranglehold that the big 4 companies have on the future of wireless. It is band together or hang separately in the end. How soon that end comes is the biggest question. I would love to see leap/metro, alltel, and uscc get together.....although I would like to see alltel be really active in the 700mhz auction even more. It's better then getting spectrum in the aws auction because it is far less costly to build out, and will be great for a carrier to just enter a market because capacity isn't as big of a concern. I think Alltel has been very hesitant to even try to get pcs spectrum/licenses in most parts of the country for this

...
(continues)

Well building out a network whether it is rural or in a major market is very expensive especially if you haven’t built out a network at all and starting from scratch, or if you are already having the network but enhancing it. It costs a lot of money either or and then maintaining it is also very expensive. The good thing is, costs for many of the networks are coming down, so that should allow companies to see which technology they want to go and the growth rates to go about it. Problem for Alltel is with money and investing in a particular technology enhancement or rollout. They also have that EV-DO roaming deal with Sprint so that should help but I think they need to grow also. In a major market, it would be very expensive as they have to b...
(continues)

Well building out networks obviously costs a lot of money as you know so yes a company like Alltel, who doesn’t have the financial might as the other carriers, need to be careful. Even with the buyout by Goldman, which has a fortune, also needs to be careful in order to grow the company but still get the necessary growth rates to continue operations. Very interesting what Alltel would do during the 700 MHz auction next year. I think they might not be buying a lot of spectrum if at all, because they do have some decent size of a portfolio but I don’t think they know what to do with it. Obviously, they have roaming deals (that is EV-DO) with Sprint so that obviously helps Alltel too. I think Alltel is hesitant at what they want to do.