August 01, 2007

Verizon's Purchase of Unicel Killing VT iPhone Hopes?

Is Verizon Wireless' announced plans to purchase Rural Cellular Corp, better known as Unicel Wireless, the end of Vermonter's dreams to have an Apple iPhone?

The deal would instantly give Verizon Wireless 716,000 more customers in Vermont and 14 other rural states, the Basking Ridge, N.J.-based cell phone company said. Verizon Wireless -- a joint venture between Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group -- currently serves 62.1 million people in the United States.

Verizon Wireless would not disclose how many Vermont subscribers they would inherit from Rural Cellular; Rural Cellular did not return calls seeking comment.

As I posted last month, I received reliable information that AT&T will be coming to Vermont. As soon as I heard about Verizon's announcement I phoned my friend to see if this would have any affect. He hadn't heard anything concrete yet but stated that this deal could have a negative affect on AT&T coming to the state.

Could AT&T been planning to enter Vermont through the purchase of Rural Cellular? I was never told so but I kinda got the impression that might have been the plan.

If I'm not mistaken the only other carriers in that operate in the state besides Verizon and Unicel is Sprint/Nextel.

Posted in Apple & Mac , Vermont , WiFi by usrbingeek at 2007-08-01 02:30 ET (GMT-5) | 3 Comments | Permalink

Comments

I believe that Verizon Wireless's purchasing of RCC will definitely have a negative impact on the iPhone ever coming to Vermont. Even if AT&T themselves never come to Vermont (which will absolutely be more difficult if the VZW RCC deal goes through), there won't even be any GSM carriers in Vermont within a year or two to get SIM cards from if they ever unlock the iPhone.

Posted by: Morgan Aldridge at August 6, 2007 10:14 AM

Ihate verizon wireless to the dote. I will swicth to T mobile as soon as they take over.

Posted by: shaqu at October 30, 2007 01:43 PM

The beauty of this is, 1)Unicel is GSM, VZ is CDMA. When the GSM transceivers are pulled down in Maine, especially, but also in lots of other places, since the big city GSM carriers have simply been buying service from Unicel and NOT putting up towers and antennas, they will either have to do catch up, spending billions, or yield rural areas to VZ.

2) And as regards to Northern New England, Verizon Communications gave up their land lines on April 1, now they will be back, directly competing with FairPoint without having to run lines, fix poles, etc, etc.

Brilliant

Posted by: Peter B at May 25, 2008 11:08 PM