Born 14 years ago when Vodafone agreed to merge its United States operations with Bell Atlantic, Verizon Wireless became the largest cellphone operator in the United States, keeping pace with AT&T.
On Monday, VimpelCom, Russia's second-largest cellphone operator, began following through on that pledge.
MegaFon is not the only cellphone operator to announce plans for a London offering.
With 15.7 million users, Vivo is the biggest cellphone operator in Brazil, itself the largest market in South America.
Bharti Airtel, India's largest cellphone operator, may be about to realize its dream of becoming an emerging market telecom giant.
But one potential client is NTT DoCoMo, the Japanese cellphone operator, which has been a traditional Sun partner.
The acquisition is the Asian company's latest deal in Europe after it bought Orange Austria, another European cellphone operator, earlier this year.
Dish's claim that Japanese ownership of the American cellphone operator is a risk to national security is half-baked and shows boss Charlie Ergen's desperation.
The Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helú has acquired companies like the Dutch cellphone operator KPN and its Austrian counterpart, Telekom Austria.
Ideally, a commercial cellphone operator would provide direct access to its network, and either the operator, the American government or the international community could foot the bill.
MEGAFON'S SHARES FALL IN DEBUT | MegaFon, the Russian cellphone operator, got a chilly reception from investors on Wednesday, as its shares fell in the first day of trading.
