Vodafone-AirTouch gets FCC green light
By Reuters
Special to CNET News.com
June 22, 1999, 5:15 p.m. PT
WASHINGTON--The Federal Communications Commission today approved British
mobile phone company Vodafone Group's $62 billion acquisition of U.S. carrier
AirTouch Communications, allowing the creation of an international wireless
powerhouse.
The agency said the deal would have no adverse effects on competition since the two
companies did not compete against each other in the United States.
Vodafone, the largest wireless carrier in Britain, had already agreed to sell its 17 percent
stake in German mobile telephone group E-Plus to meet
European competition concerns. San Francisco-based
AirTouch's German joint venture, Mannesmann Mobilfunk, is
a competitor to E-Plus.
The two companies plan to create a wireless firm offering
service across Europe and the United States, capable of
reaching nearly one billion people in 23 countries.
Those plans could be complicated by a dispute between
AirTouch and regional phone carrier Bell Atlantic, which lost
out in the bidding for AirTouch in January. Bell Atlantic has
said it plans to dissolve a U.S. wireless joint venture it had
with AirTouch, despite AirTouch's desire to salvage the pact.
The AirTouch-Vodafone deal was approved late last month by
the European Union and shareholders of both companies.
The FCC approval came from the staff of the agency's
wireless communications bureau, not by a vote from the
agency's five commissioners appointed by the President.
That irked two commissioners, Democrat Gloria Tristani and Republican Harold
Furchgott-Roth, who complained that the deal should have been assessed by the full
commission.
Neither Tristani nor Furchgott-Roth said they opposed the merger, only that they objected
to the approval process.
Story Copyright © 1999 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. |
