MCI WorldCom Might Bid for AirTouch
Thursday January 7 5:23 PM ET
dailynews.yahoo.com
Excerpts:
The rapid pace of consolidation sweeping the entire telecommunications industry isn't expected to stop with the pursuit of AirTouch. The losing bidders likely will target other cellular phone companies, which pose an increasing threat to traditional telephone service.
As cellular phone prices decline and the technology improves, Thrasher expects cellular phones to become a standard way people call each other, send faxes and connect to the Internet.
Wall Street already was handicapping the next moves by the suitors AirTouch rejects. Nextel Communications Inc. (Nasdaq:NXTL - news) of McLean, Va., and Mannesmann AG, a German cellular giant, were high on lists of takeover candidates.
Bell Atlantic, which provides cellular and local phone service along the East Coast, would most likely go after a U.S. company to create a nationwide network, industry experts say.
And while Nextel is an industry leader and is expanding in South America, the company has spent heavily to build a digital network and is saddled with $7 billion in debt.
Nextel's stock rose 933/4 cents to $29.311/4 on Nasdaq. Bell Atlantic's stock rose 121/2 cents to $56 on the NYSE. |
