Forget the Microsoft Soap Opera. It's the Verizon deal that matters [telecom]

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To be sure, Microsoft's purchase of Nokia's cellphone business makes for a better story. The $7.17 billion deal spans the big-time patent wars, a simmering drama over the CEO succession plan at Microsoft, and the tragic spectacle of two aging tech giants flailing around in search of relevance -- not to mention all those shiny gadgets.

But as that melodrama unfolded, some real money was being spent elsewhere in the mobile game. In what's being described as one of the biggest deals in corporate history, Verizon agreed to pay $130 billion to British telecom Vodafone in order to buy out the multinational's stake in Verizon Wireless, the second largest wireless operation in the U.S.