The U.S Department of Justice has announced that Verizon Communications must sell off portions of Rural Cellular Corp. Unicel branded mobile network in order to complete its $2.7 billion acquisition of the company.
Rurual Cellular Corp. currently has wireless infrastructure in 6 geographic areas covering Burlington, Vermont, New York State, and Washington State which will be sold by Verizon according to the Justice Department along with the filing of a proposed consent decree to resolve issues in order to avoid further litigation stemming from a civil lawsuit filed by the Antitrust Division on Tuesday.
This acquisition as it originally stood before the review would have resulted in decreased competition to the detriment of current wireless subscribers, followed by the threat of potentially higher prices, the potential of degraded service, and possible reduction of investment in the network on top of overlapping service areas.
There is no comment available from the Deparment of Justice or Verizon Communications at this time.
Does that affect Sprint in any way?