VERIZON ACQUIRES RURAL CELLULAR

Verizon has jusannounced that it has successfully acquired Rural Cellular, a regional network which offers GSM service under the Unicel brand. Rural Cellular serves over 716,000 subscribers in parts of New England, the Mid West, the South and the Pacific Northwest. With this acquisition, Verizon receives 625,000 customers and licenses covering 4.7 million people. Starting next year, Rural Cellular stores and customers will be transitioned to the Verizon Wireless brand and CDMA service. A few of Rural Cellular's operations are to be divested as part of this transaction. They may also be divested as a requirement of Verizon's planned acquisition of Alltel.