Just two weeks since Vodafone and Verizon Communications renewed their vows, it is still odds-on that their partnership will end in acrimonious divorce. The US company prefers to use cash from Verizon Wireless to reduce the mobile operator's debt rather than pay an early dividend on Vodafone's 45 per cent stake in the joint venture. When both money and custody of the offspring are in dispute, it cannot end well.

In public, Vodafone and Verizon Communications like to laud each other's contributions to Verizon Wireless, their US mobile phone joint venture.

Sir John Bond, Vodafone's chairman, last month spoke of the "good relationship" the UK mobile phone operator has with Verizon. Denny Strigl, Verizon Communications' chief operating officer, described Vodafone earlier this year as a "very good partner".

But Verizon Wireless has always been an uneasy marriage of convenience between the two shareholders, with each company jostling for position.

The latest power play came this month, when Vodafone's board decided against exercising a put option that would have en-titled the world's largest mobile operator by revenue to sell up to $10bn worth of Verizon Wireless's shares to Verizon Communications.

Before reaching that conclusion, Vodafone and the UK company's advisers considered a range of options for the US mobile business. These included Vodafone buying Verizon Communications, the second-largest US telecoms company with a market capitalisation of $119bn, which could have provided a lasting solution to the tension inside the joint venture.

Verizon Wireless was formed in 2000, when Vodafone's and Verizon Communications' predecessor companies pooled their mobile assets after realising the importance of creating a US mobile operator with national scale.

Vodafone owned AirTouch, a mobile operator on the west coast of the US, while Bell Atlantic, a New York-based fixed-line phone company, had a wireless business covering the east coast. Chris Gent, then Vodafone's chief executive, opted against spending an enormous amount of time and money transforming AirTouch from a regional to a national mobile operator.

Instead, he decided to throw in his lot with Bell Atlantic, which was already merging with GTE, another regional US fixed-line phone company, to form Verizon Communications.

Verizon Communications, partly by contributing more mobile customers, ended up with a 55 per cent stake in Verizon Wireless, leaving Vodafone with 45 per cent.

The move might have created what was then the largest US mobile operator, but this was never going to be a straightforward partnership, partly because Vodafone had antagonised Bell Atlantic in 1999 by trumping its bid for AirTouch.

Two subsequent events underlined the two partners' different agendas. First, in 2004, Vodafone made a $38bn bid for AT&T Wireless, a rival US mobile operator but was outbid by Cingular.

The next year, Vodafone received its last dividend from Verizon Wireless, worth £923m ($1.8bn). The payments dried up after Verizon Communications instead decided to use those cash flows to pay down the mobile operator's debt.

Some analysts interpreted the move as an attempt to squeeze out Vodafone.

Ever since Vodafone's failed bid for AT&T Wireless, Verizon Communications has made plain its wish to secure exclusive ownership of the mobile joint venture.

Vodafone, however, has refused Verizon Communications' overtures to sell its 45 per cent stake, in spite of pressure from some of the UK company's investors.

Arun Sarin, Mr Gent's successor at Vodafone and a former AirTouch executive, has fended off calls for a sale, partly by pointing to the prospect of a resumption of dividend payments by Verizon Wireless in 2009.

Mr Sarin has also sought to placate investors by highlighting the increasing value of Vodafone's 45 per cent stake in Verizon Wireless. Analysts raised their estimates of its value from $38bn last year to $54bn this year.

Mr Sarin acknowledged last month that Vodafone would have to decide when the value of its Verizon Wireless stake would peak.

He argued that Vodafone had time on its side because the US mobile market would not be saturated for at least another three to four years - one reason that Vodafone decided earlier this month not to exercise its put option.

Vodafone also decided against exercising the option because there was insufficient certainty it could secure a one off dividend derived from a revaluation of Verizon Wireless. It could have resulted in long running litigation between Vodafone and Verizon Communications, which neither company wanted.

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, was in 2005 but the UK company's executives have indicated that they expect payments to resume by 2009.

The likely slippage to 2010 or later could fuel tension between Verizon Communications, the US telecommunications company that controls Verizon Wireless through its 55 per cent stake, and Vodafone, although both publicly maintain they have a productive partnership.

It could also anger some of Vodafone's investors.

Verizon Communications has made it clear that resuming dividend payments depended on eliminating Verizon Wireless' net debt.

This stood at about $10bn before it announced plans in July to acquire Rural Cellular, a smaller US mobile operator, for $2.7bn, including $1.9bn of debt.

Verizon Communications has been using the strong cash flow from Verizon Wireless to reduce the mobile operator's debt by about $5bn (£3.4bn) per year.

But Doreen Tobin, Verizon Communications' chief financial officer, said in January that, even when Verizon Wireless' debt was eliminated, dividend policy would be "at our discretion".

Ivan Seidenberg, Verizon's chief executive, while acknowledging Vodafone's expectations, indicated in a discussion with analysts after the Rural Cellular deal that he was in no hurry to resume dividend payments.

He said: "Our first goal is to continue to grow both the top line and bottom line of Verizon Wireless. I think, in this case, we can deploy capital better by reinvesting in the business than moving towards a quicker dividend." The likelihood that Verizon Wireless will take part in a January auction of 700Mhz wireless spectrum, which could be used for broadband mobile services, and the possibility that it could buy more rural mobile operators such as Rural Cellular point towards dividend payments not taking place until 2010 or later.

Vodafone said yesterday that it had taken account of the possibility of more dealmaking and spectrum purchases by Verizon Wireless. "We remain of the view that dividend payments will resume in calendar year 2009."

But Terence Sinclair, analyst at Citigroup, said Verizon Wireless could be "dividend-less" in 2009.