AT&T Buys Centennial

AT&T is buying Centennial Communications, adding 1.1 million subscribers to the 74.9 million already served by AT&T (News - Alert) Wireless.  

 

Verizon Wireless, which has 70.8 million customers, also will be adding 13 million Alltel Communications customers to its total. Up to a point, such acquisitions are justified by the value of filling in coverage holes and gaining additional scale. At another level, such acquisitions also are a reflection of how difficult it now is to add new customers organically.

 

AT&T is just about out of sizable acquisition targets, though. It probably couldn't make a play for T-Mobile, even if were for sale, for anti-trust reasons.

 

There are several sizable mobile providers left, but they use the CDMA air interface and therefore are incompatible with AT&T's air interface. Of the three networks, US Cellular, with 6.2 million subscribers, would seem to be the most-likely candidate for an eventual Verizon (News - Alert) acquisition move.

 

MetroPCS, with 4.8 million customers, and Cricket/Leap, with 3.5 million customers, operate in the credit-challenged, landline replacement and "value" market segments, and would not have the average revenue per user metrics Verizon would prefer.