10 Comments to “Verizon Starts Absorbing Alltel Customers & Stores – Central Virginia Goes First”

1. 

   Posted by: brayndeded

   June 3, 2009 at 12:49 am EST

   man it cant come soon enough. i have the 8830 and want a new bb but alltel hasnt put anything new out for about 411 years…so i wait and wait some more.
   im in kansas and knowing my luck, i will be the last on the list of the last cities in the last state. the customer service in my town SUCKS bad! i hope the big red V will shake the people up or fire them.

   Reply
2. 

   Posted by: ShenanDon

   June 3, 2009 at 5:45 am EST

   I am in C’ville. Lost my Blackberry email and internet during the conversion Sunday when Vzw set up my account minus my 16-month old data plan. Five calls and three-plus hours of on-phone “support” later, all is well.

   BTW, the magic solution was, of course, the last call which only took six minutes. A sharp tech named Mark finally figured out that the re-established data plan had not been properly “provisioned” on the RIM network even though the new Vzw acct now showed my data plan. One minute after hitting the switch, the emails came flooding thru!

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   • 

     Posted by: ShenanDon

     June 3, 2009 at 7:28 am EST

     Update: An hour after posting this comment via my Blackberry, email and internet are now down (at least for my Blackberry on the “Allizon” / “VerTel” network).

     Sheesh!

     Reply
3. 

   Posted by: DavidB

   June 3, 2009 at 7:36 am EST

   A pictured of the Borg cube would have gone well with this article…

   So, didn’t we see word a couple weeks back that ATT was picking up the divested markets and Verizon was getting a bunch of rural ATT customers plus cash in exchange? Could of swore I read that somewhere (BG, Fierce, IntoMobile, Engadget, somewhere…).

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   • 

     Posted by: Ronen Halevy

     June 3, 2009 at 7:47 am EST

     You didnt like my sad robots…

     Reply
   • 

     Posted by: Shenandoah Don

     June 3, 2009 at 8:09 am EST

     There are some markets where Verizon could not acquire Alltel customers for anti-trust reasons. And, like you, I recall seeing that a deal with AT&T was imminent. Though I don’t know if it was consummated.

     Prepare to be assimilated!

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     • 

       Posted by: DavidB

       June 3, 2009 at 9:40 am EST

       Found it:

       http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2009/05/09/atandt-verizon-swap-wireless-markets/

       “We suppose you could think of AT&T and Verizon as football teams and wireless markets as high-priced players, because a few of ‘em just got traded like the athletic pieces of meat that they are. It’s no secret that Verizon had to offload some markets to satisfy government requirements following its Alltel buy, and AT&T has now agreed in principle to pick up about 1.5 million subscribers’ worth of spectrum and equipment in 79 market areas — mostly rural — for some $2.35 billion in cash. In the other direction, Verizon will be cutting AT&T a check for $240 million in exchange for about 120,000 subs in five legacy Centennial markets — contingent, of course, on the successful completion of AT&T’s purchase of Centennial. Interesting moves, but it’ll be even more interesting to see which move leads its team to the playoffs… er, you know what we mean.

       Read – AT&T agrees to acquire divestiture properties from Verizon
       Read – Verizon acquires certain Centennial Wireless properties from AT&T”

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4. 

   Posted by: JR_Rider

   June 3, 2009 at 9:07 am EST

   Personally, I am not happy at all about this transition process. We have been when Alltel/360 Communications since 1992 and I have a feeling that we won’t be on Verizon very long. In my opinion Alltel was the best of both worlds in the wireless space. Value priced plans with great flexibility and awesome service to go along with it. But honestly I am not willing to pay the higher fees associated with Verizon because I don’t think it worth paying extra money for the same thing I had with Verizon for less. So I will either have to buy my phones outright going forward or I will need to switch carriers. We shall see.

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5. 

   Posted by: cheech

   June 3, 2009 at 12:23 pm EST

   AWE NOW CHAD CANT MAKE FUN OF VERIZON ANYMORE.

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6. 

   Posted by: coffeebean

   October 16, 2009 at 1:02 pm EST

   Helpful article. Here’s another post that Alltel customers should check out: http://lunchpail.knotice.com/2009/10/16/the-verizon-alltel-merger-customer-news/

   Reply