Publish Date : 23-Sep-2013
AT&T today announced that it has closed its acquisition of Atlantic Tele-Network, Inc.'s U.S. retail wireless assets operated under the Alltel brand. AT&T acquired wireless properties in six states, including spectrum licenses, network assets, retail stores and approximately 590,000 subscribers. The Alltel network covers approximately 4.5 million people in mainly rural areas in Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, North Carolina, Ohio and South Carolina.
AT&T will immediately begin upgrading the former Alltel network to 4G and plans to move customers to the AT&T network by midyear 2014. Former Alltel subscribers will have access to a wireless network that combines Alltel's local coverage with AT&T's nationwide 4G coverage and to mobile Internet speeds up to 10 times faster than what they have today. AT&T plans to roll out 4G LTE in the former Alltel service area on a market-by-market basis and expects 4G LTE will be widely available in those areas by late 2014. Today, AT&T's 4G LTE network is the nation's fastest and now most reliable and covers more than 225 million people in 397 markets.1 AT&T expects its 4G LTE network to reach 300 million people by the end of 2014.
"We welcome Alltel customers to the AT&T family, and we think they will love everything they can do on our superfast 4G network," said Jenifer Robertson, Vice President and General Manager, AT&T Rocky Mountain Region. "We've invested more than $90 million in our wireless and wired networks in Idaho since 2010, including nearly $35 million in the first half of 2013. And we'll continue to invest to bring fast mobile Internet service to more people across the state."
In Idaho, about 6,000 Alltel customers in the following counties will join AT&T: Adams, Boise, Custer, Gem, Idaho, Lemhi, Payette, Valley and Washington. The acquisition of Alltel in Idaho also includes about 5 employees
Alltel customers choosing 4G LTE devices with an AT&T rate plan will experience the great performance of AT&T's 4G LTE network, which continues to be validated by independent third-party testing:
Our 4G LTE service was recognized as having faster average download and upload speeds than any of our competitors in PCWorld/TechHive's most recent 20-market speed tests — the second consecutive year that AT&T has ranked first overall. PCWorld/TechHive also ranked AT&T's as the fastest combination of 3G and 4G services in the 20 cities it tested.
And AT&T was named America's fastest 4G LTE network in PC Magazine's 2013 Fastest Mobile Networks 30-market study — and also swept the top rankings in all six U.S. regions from coast to coast: Northeast, Southeast, North-Central, South-Central, Northwest and Southwest.
Go to previous page
