I acknowledge that my plan to hold is risky, but the risk is now greatly mitigated.  The resulting company will have a very solid balance sheet, ALU has equal amounts of cash as it does debt.  However, NOK currently has a net cash position (i.e. minus debt) of about $5B and with the Mapping division it probably will add an aditional $2B to $2,5B It will be able to issue corporate bonds with very low yeilds, more so now that the EU is in QE mode. I expect the combined company to doa  fair deal of debt restructuring.  The field of competitors is actually quite low, much of that excess of start ups from back in the Dot Com bubble have gone by the way side.  Pricing for equipment is actually firming up significantly, this deal just goes further in helping that continue.   ALU brings Switching and Routing and this is the best segment in the company, it actually competes quite well against the likes of Juniper (similar market share) and Cisco (the dominant company in segment).  ALU also is doing a lot of R&D in the SDN area, if it manages to position itself as a strong competitor CSCO and JNPR may lose ground.  That said, this is a far off thing, telcos like long transitions, but it is a promising long term possibility.