Alltel/Cellcom

[DemoMan]

Any more news or rumblings about Alltel buying Cellcom's network?

Brad

[Hman]

I talked to a CellCom rep last weekend. The rep said the merger will be complete by Feb 20, 2004.

The rep said Green Bay and the eastern most counties will remain CellCom. The western counties will become AllTel.

The rep could not give the exact list of counties which will become AllTel.

I guess we will just have to wait til the end of Feb to see how this all pans out.

I have not seen any press releases about this as of yet.

Hman

[NicGB79]

Alltel will be taking over management of the WI RSA #3 market as of February 20-23. Cellcom previously managed the cellular operations in this market for the WI RSA #3 partnership. Alltel bought out the rights of several partners leaving Alltel with the most stake in the partnership. They then made a decision to manage the market themselves vs. having Cellcom manage it for them. Alltel has been a minority partner for quite some time. So in actuality no part of Cellcom was bought or sold as they purely managed the operations of the partnership.

Hope that clears up any confusion.

[Gamer03]

Thanks for clearing this up for us NicGB79.

I appreciate it.

[DanPFW]

This got me kind of curious, so I decided to look into this area a little more. I thought it looked like Alltel was buying most of WI when they took over CenturyTel's wireless business.

According to the FCC, Alltel owns CMA 710(RSA 3), 711(RSA 4), and 717(RSA 10). It looks like the only thing up in that area that Alltel does not own is CMA263, which is Wausau, and CMA186, which is Green Bay.

I wonder what the chances are that they are finally going to market their own area now, and maybe buy the remaining 2 markets to provide more seemless service to customers?

I know we have problems in MN from similar small carriers that own land in the middle of other companies networks. This type of situation really puts a kink on things.

How long has the Cellcom labeled area been digital? It's kind of interesting that they didn't rebrand the area when they took it over from CenturyTel initially. Did the network conversion have anything to do with the timeframe of this deal?

Dan

[NicGB79]

Cellcom has had CDMA 800 service in the Brown County MSA since 1999, in WI RSA 4 & 10 since 2001 and in Wausau since Xmas. They also have CDMA PCS in Appleton,Stevens Point, and Iron Mtn. Alltel was a minority partner in the markets they bought from Centurytel that Cellcom operated, so they didn't have the power to manage or rebrand the markets. Since then they bought out other minority partners in the WI RSA 3 area giving them majority ownership, hence the change in management and rebranding. In some of the areas they are the 800 B carrier and others they have PCS licenses.

Originally posted by: DanPFW This got me kind of curious, so I decided to look into this area a little more. I thought it looked like Alltel was buying most of WI when they took over CenturyTel's wireless business. According to the FCC, Alltel owns CMA 710(RSA 3), 711(RSA 4), and 717(RSA 10). It looks like the only thing up in that area that Alltel does not own is CMA263, which is Wausau, and CMA186, which is Green Bay. I wonder what the chances are that they are finally going to market their own area now, and maybe buy the remaining 2 markets to provide more seemless service to customers? I know we have problems in MN from similar small carriers that own land in the middle of other companies networks. This type of situation really puts a kink on things. How long has the Cellcom labeled area been digital? It's kind of interesting that they didn't rebrand the area when they took it over from CenturyTel initially. Did the network conversion have anything to do with the timeframe of this deal? Dan