Britain’s Vodafone is unlikely to receive dividends on its 45 per cent stake in Verizon Wireless, the second-largest US mobile operator, until 2010 or later, based on a Financial Times analysis of the joint venture’s debt and potential spending plans.

Vodafone’s last dividend from Verizon Wireless, worth £923m ($1.8bn), was in 2005 but the UK company’s executives have indicated that they expect payments to resume by 2009.