As a US Cellular subscriber, considering they run the same CDMA network, I could see Verizon a more likely buyer. I've always figured that was coming.
It seems every time one of these bigger players buys someone, the other has to respond to try and get their customer base back to #1. US Cellular would be the Alltel pawn for Verizon in that game.
I long ago gave up on pointing that out. I know several people who left Alltel here for Verizon because "AT&T has terrible coverage" - LOL. The reason AT&T bought Alltel here was to bring us coverage (AT&T actually had no native coverage) and they invested quite a bit into expanding and improving the already far better than Verizon network. But the people left before even giving it a chance, based on their biases...
You're saying it was well founded for them to leave a carrier with great coverage because a carrier with no coverage whatsoever here bought them? Because that carrier has bad coverage here? It was silly.