The Justice Department has given their approval for Verizon's planned $28 billion acquisition of Alltel, though as expected, the deal will require Verizon to offload some network assets in 22 states where the carriers overlap. The FCC will now vote on the acquisition November 4, and FCC chief Kevin Martin is expected to require that Verizon sell operations in five additional rural areas to "prevent the carrier from gaining too much market power," according to Bloomberg. Martin traditionally is only pro-consumer when it looks good, so it's likely these were markets Verizon cared little about anyway. Consumer advocates meanwhile see no consumer benefit to the deal.