Buying Verizon would be hard to get past the government. See how difficult it was for AT&T to buy Alltel (they had to give a not-insignificant part of it to Verizon to play fair).
One telecom purchasing another is a completely different beast with a different kind of history than a hardware/operating system company purchasing a telecom.
It was difficult for AT&T to purchase Alltel because after the breakup of Ma Bell, the baby bells have been eating each other and consolidating into the current Big Three (ATT, Tmobile, Verizon). The AT&T purchase of Alltel was seen as a baby bell further consolidating the wireless marketplace.
Its a global game not a US one. The amount of money to buy global operators is large. Vodafone is 125bn dollars and as a global operator is just the first on the list. Apple and Google can't just buy global mobile.
True, but you can expand that. It is a long term strategy.
They are sitting on 120B that is just in some hedge funds anyway, why not do something with it that has a competitive advantage. They just have no plan....
Give this money Amazon or Google they would know what to do with it. That's the reason i dislike Apple. They don't have a mayor purpose any more. If there is no company vision, then at least do something that improves everyone's live and gives this company another shot. In the worst case Apple loses the phone wars and is the biggest mobile operator in the world. Not even that of a risky move, mobile operators have a pretty solid business model.
I think it will not matter as much which company it is, as that it is a cell phone company. Having one corporation in charge of both the device and the service is something that will hurt the consumers in the long run I believe.
Normally I'd agree, but US carriers have done an exceptional job of crippling mobile computing over the last decade, and just about anything would be an improvement. If one or more of Apple, Google, or Microsoft were to buy a carrier and pledge to run it as a dumb pipe, that would be great for everyone. Well, except the incumbents who would be introduced to real competition.
Buying T-Mobile, on the other hand...