AirTouch received takeover bids from Bell Atlantic, MCI, and finally Vodafone, which was the winner and merged with AirTouch in January 1999. Later the same year, Bell Atlantic approached Vodafone Airtouch about merging all three wireless operations (Bell Atlantic Mobile, AirTouch Cellular, and PrimeCo Communications) into a joint venture to be called Verizon Wireless [http://www.sptimes.com/News/040500/Business/PrimeCo_customers_hea.shtml]. Due to FCC regulations regarding duplication of frequencies, the PrimeCo territories were split up with: most of the Gulf Coast going into Verizon Wireless, except in Houston, where Verizon Wireless retained 10 MHz of spectrum and the remaining 20 MHz were sold to AT&T Wireless; Virginia and North Carolina territories sold to CFW Communications, a regional landline telecom provider since 1987, now operating under the name of nTelos; and the Midwest territories split up, with Wisconsin going into Verizon Wireless, and the Illinois and Indiana territories - like Houston - were disaggregated, with Verizon Wireless retaining 10 MHz of spectrum, and the remaining 20 MHz placed into a trust fund. The Illinois-Indiana PrimeCo territories were purchased by Clarity Partners, a Los Angeles-based private equity firm in 2001, who successfully improved the company's operations and later sold it to U.S. Cellular. PrimeCo's operations in Hawaii were sold to Sprint PCS in 1999.