AT&T Near Deal to Buy Alltel Assets: Report

Updated from 4:24 p.m. EDT

CNBC reported Friday afternoon that AT&T(T Quote) was close to a deal to buy Verizon's(VZ Quote) Alltel divestitures.

According to CNBC and The Wall Street Journal, the Alltel assets would be divided into 24 groups, the bulk of which AT&T would buy for $2.5 billion. The divestiture was a requirement for Verizon Wireless, a joint venture with Verizon and Vodafone(VOD Quote), to buy Alltel, which it picked up for $28.1 billion last year, a year after TPG Capital and Goldman Sachs(GS Quote) took the firm private. Verizon's purchase of Alltel and its roughly 13 million customers, made it the nation's largest wirless provider.

AT&T shares were down 0.8% to $25.25 in recent trading, and Verizon was down 0.03% to $29.85. Rounding out their primary competitors, Sprint(S Quote) shares rose 0.4% to $5.24, Deutsche Telekom(DT Quote) rose 1.7% to $11.06 and Qwest Communications fell 2.4% to $4.44.