In the first of what will probably be several consolidations in the wireless market, Cingular has won a bidding war to purchase AT&T wireless. Their bid of $41 billion knocked the last remaining competitor, Vodafone out of the running. Now Cingular must get stockholder and government approval to close the deal. If it does go through, the combined company will be the largest cell phone carrier in the country moving ahead of the current leader Verizon. By the way, Vodafone just happens to own a 45% share of Verizon.
AT&T Wireless split from AT&T in July 2001 as an independent company and employees 30,000 employees. It has somewhere around 25 million subscribers.
As you know, I am not a large fan of these mega mergers. Generally people lose jobs and customer service goes further down the tubes. But sometimes you get some real cool television ads. The wireless industry in this country needs some fire under its feet. We are not moving fast to implement new technologies in this area. If this deal can help get the fire started, it might be worth it. Check back in around 2006 or 2007 and let's see what really happens. I wonder how many shares of AT&T Wireless stock its executives and board members own anyway? At a $15.00 per share bid they are all probably sitting pretty well! (The market price on Monday was around $12)
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