Subscribers in Charlottesville, Lynchburg, Madison Heights, Martinsville and South Boston, Va., this weekend became the first Alltel customers to be switched to Verizon Wireless-branded service since the company's $28.1 billion acquisition of Alltel closed in early January.  

[1]Verizon spent the past few months integrating Alltel's network, switching over the billing systems, upgrading wireless broadband service and re-merchandising stores. Verizon's acquisition of Alltel made it the nation's largest wireless carrier in terms of total subscribers, with more than 80 million.

As a condition of the acquisition, Verizon agreed to divest 105 markets where its service overlapped with Alltel's. AT&T said in early May it would buy a large portion of the assets for $2.35 billion.

For more:
- see this release [2]

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Verizon requests more time to sell Alltel assets [4]
Blackstone makes bid for Verizon's divested assets [5]
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Verizon-Alltel [7] deal leaves subscriber gaps
Verizon-Alltel [8] deal to close Jan. 9
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