TELECOMNEXT: Alltel's Ford bids adieu

Alltel President and CEO Scott Ford won't be back to TelecomNext next year. He said farewell to the crowd and to USTelecom in his keynote speech yesterday as he goes off to run the company's wireless business.

Alltel announced in December it would spin off its wireline business and merge it with Valor Communications Group, making Alltel a pure-play wireless service provider with 11 million customers in 34 states--the fifth largest.

In a move that appears to buck the convention of convergence, Ford said the company has better odds of success by separating the companies.

He said the market is the background sanity-check for how well his company is meeting the needs of its customers. And as the self-proclaimed stewards of other people's money (investors), Ford said, "We think we can drive greater shareholder value from our own asset mix."

Ford believes that fixed/mobile substitution will continue at a faster pace than fixed mobile convergence and he took a parting shot at the idea of Net neutrality.

"It's not something we get exercised about every day," he said. He commended Congress and the FCC on the good work they have done, but said sometimes there are regulators who see themselves as referees who like to put on a striped shirt and start running the game."

He said Net neutrality makes as much sense as grocery store neutrality or Taco Bell neutrality where people can eat all they want for $25 per month.