Atlantic Tele-Network (ATN), a Salem, Massachusetts based telecom holding company, is purchasing the remaining divested Alltel assets from Verizon. The purchase for $200 million includes approximately 800k subscribers and the wireless network and spectrum assets covering 26 markets in Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, North Carolina, Ohio, and South Carolina. The new ATN/Alltel footprint covers 4.5 million POPs. Verizon was required to divest the assets as a condition of their Alltel acquisition. AT&T is purchasing the majority of these divested assets.
ATN operates numerous wireless networks, primarily in the Caribbean. They do operate a wholesale rural wireless network, Commnet Wireless, for roaming purposes in the U.S. Among other holdings, they own Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company Ltd., Bermuda Digital Communications Ltd., and Choice Communications, LLC which operates in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
“This is a very attractive transaction for ATN and it accomplishes what we have been patiently seeking over the past few years,” said Michael Prior, ATN’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “It provides ATN with enhanced scale and revenue diversification and enables us to expand meaningfully our US wireless business. Coupled with our existing US wireless operations, we will now have significant wireless operations in rural areas of more than 10 states. Including our international operations, we expect to have more than 1,000,000 retail wireless subscribers by transaction close.”
this sucks i will miss alltel
yeah, it's screwed up that alltel customers get shafted, and forced to switch to verizon, at&t, or worse this atlantic telenetwork that operates primarily in the caribbean…?? think i may pay the early out of contract fee, which I am sure alltel is getting alot of revenue from
This ain't right what is atn anyway? I don't think they will get as many customers as they think they will because like me I'm sure other will take their business elsewhere. I just don't want to do business with a company I haven't heard of.
I had hopes that AT&T would have purchaced more of Alltel… but now faced with going to a company with a customer base smaller than Boost… I may not even wait until end of my contract to say goodbye Alltel (ATN?)… Hello AT&T.
I decided to wait, and see how it works out. even paid for another year contract. verizon does not work all that well here, and the alltel still does.
Don't opt out of your contract until you've seen the result. I suspect you'll see little change. And if you opt out, where are you going to go? AT&T, Verizon, or ATN, most likely. Save the money.
Oh, and Alltel won't be the one getting the money for your opt-out. It will go to whichever company has bought the assets for your market.
I'm thinking about opting out and getting a $45/month, no-contract StraightTalk phone at Wal-mart. For that price, you get unlimited everything, including web. My service with Alltel for the last year or so has been pretty unreliable, to say the least. Lots of dropped calls, texting delays, etc.
I live in illinois. Does anyone know when this company is to take over? I wonder what will happen to the contracts that we have now? 🙁