Vodafone To Ditch Verizon
Now that Vodafone has lost the battle for France, the new rumor is that they want a piece of the US market. The speculation started when Vodafone named American Arun Sarin as Chris Gent's heir. But now UK newspaper the Independent is reporting that Vodafone is actively looking to sell off its share in Verizon Wireless to buy into T-Mobile USA or AT&T, both of which have GSM networks. As expected Vodafone is not commenting. Such a deal would be extremely complex and take quite a while to put together since both AT&T and T-Mobile consider Vodafone a global competitor. T-Mobile especially seems like a long shot given the fact that they compete with Vodafine head-on in several European markets. Likewise, AT&T wireless is partly owned by NTT DoCoMo, Vodafone's number one competitor in Japan. At this point it's all rumor and speculation. We'll believe it when we see it. Update:Vodafone has issued a statement saying they have no intention of selling their stake in Verizon.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team