US mobile phone company Verizon Wireless has agreed to buy rival Alltel in a deal worth $28.1 billion.
Verizon Wireless is a joint venture between US telecoms giant Verizon, which owns 55%, and Vodafone, which has 45%.
It struck the deal with the private equity group that bought Alltel a year ago for $27.5 billion. Under the agreement, Verizon Wireless will pay around $5.9 billion for Alltel, and also take on the company's debt of $22.2 billion.
The deal potentially gives Verizon Wireless, the second biggest mobile phone company in the US with 67 million customers, control over the fifth largest. Alltel has 13 million customers.
The combined group would have more American mobile phone customers than AT&T, which has 71.4 million.
Alltel was bought in November 2007 by investment fund groups Goldman Sachs Capital Partners and TPG Capital. In the past, Vodafone's outgoing chief executive Arun Sarin had defied calls from prominent shareholders to sell the group's stake in Verizon Wireless.
