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Technology Stocks : Vodafone-Airtouch (NYSE: VOD) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MrGreenJeans who wrote (2056)	11/12/1999 7:41:00 AM
From: David Wiggins	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3175

Will they or won't they? Vodafone hostile move on Mannesmann seen probable By Gareth Vaughan, CBS MarketWatch Last Update: 7:26 AM ET Nov 12, 1999 CBS screws up one's ability to copy entire article... cbs.marketwatch.com

To: MrGreenJeans who wrote (2056)	11/12/1999 9:10:00 AM
From: Art Bechhoefer	Respond to of 3175

Those are good points. So if you include the existing Vodafone coverage in Great Britain, it means that Vodafone becomes the largest wireless service provider in western Europe. One thing we forget in the U.S., where there is far more competition, is that wired long distance rates in the U.S. are much less than in Europe, which still holds on to the old state-owned PTT (Post-telephone-telegraph) monopolies and only reluctantly is now allowing competition. Wireless offers the possibility of no roaming charges (as in the case of Sprint PCS), making Vodafone's wide coverage in western Europe extremely attractive to customers used to monopoly long distance pricing. Maybe this is the rationale used to justify what looks at the outset as a very high price. I got into these shares through AirTouch not long after the PacTel spinoff. After splits and exchanges for VOD, the current shares are roughly 12 times cost, which doesn't give one much incentive to sell and pay all that capital gains tax.