Verizon Completes Acquisition of Mohave Wireless

Mohave Wireless is a regional wireless service provider located in Kingman, Arizona. Mohave’s network covers an area with a total population of about 203,000. Until April 2, 2013 Mohave was owned by Frontier Communications and Rio Virgin Telephone. Its market is located between Las Vegas and Phoenix and covers parts of the Grand Canyon, Kingman, Lake Havasu City and Bullhead City.

As of yesterday, Mohave was acquired by the U.S. joint venture between Verizon Communications and the U.K.’s Vodafone, known as Verizon Wireless. So far there has been no disclosure of any of the details concerning the acquisition.

The facts that we know for sure are that Verizon Wireless now has 100 percent control and ownership of Mohave. We also know that at least the remainder of this year, Mohave will keep its name and customers will not be affected.

Verizon’s network transformation is scheduled for completion sometime in early 2014. That is when the changes to Mohave will take place. Verizon will then begin to transfer customers over to their network. This will only affect the customers who are currently on the Mohave network.

The purpose of this acquisition is to expand Verizon’s coverage in northwest Arizona. Considering that the Mohave Desert takes up some space in northwest Arizona, you can imagine that it is a region of the U.S. that does not get too much coverage. Verizon is hoping to expand its 4G LTE network in the area.

It appears that Verizon has already invested quite a bit to increase its coverage across the U.S. The numbers come in at over $80 billion since Verizon began its rollout. According to Verizon, it is paying off. It says it has the largest 4G LTE network in the U.S. right now with more than 486 markets covering almost 90 percent of the population.

There is a rumor going around that Verizon is planning a joint venture with AT&T. If you can believe the rumor mill, the two rivals will join forces to purchase Vodafone. The deal could be worth as much as $245 billion. Some sources say that under the terms of the alleged deal, Verizon would acquire Vodafone’s share of Verizon Wireless while AT&T would purchase Vodafone’s international assets.

Vodafone is a British multinational telecommunications company. It is the world’s second-largest mobile telecommunications company, so you can see that if this rumor becomes a reality that both Verizon and AT&T are looking at very large market gains.