Best Buy to Carry Alltel Wireless Products, Services

Just in case anybody thought otherwise...

 

Lucky people who can have alltel native service.

 

I still see Alltel's commercials on TV here even though they don't offer service here and have no licenses to do so.

 

Is that on national tv stations?

 

I think that I'd be seeing Alltel sold around me then. Places like Saginaw, Bay City, Midland, Grand Rapids, Lansing, etc in Michigan all have Best Buys, so that'll be great! I really wish I'd have native Alltel service here in the Thumb, but I'm just hoping either Alltel or Verizon buys out the CDMA carrier here.

 

I don't have any issue with Alltel, but they seem like a "wonderful" carrier because they're not national. They are a decent enough size to be taken serious (to a point) and can offer things the larger carriers can't or won't.

As T-Mobile continues to grow, they too will follow in the footsteps of the big boys. Size, scope, wealth, and influence could corrupt them like it has with Blue and Red.

I'm not trying to knock Alltel or anything, but it seems like people have a love affair with them, as if they truly are on an equal level with the larger carriers.

Sprint and Verizon would likely not be so allowing in their roaming agreements (with Alltel) if Alltel competed with them in the many major markets Alltel doesn't have service.

There would be NO Alltel service in L.A., New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, and several other major cities without the network help of Sprint and/or Verizon.

Just my :twocents:.

 

Yes. National cable networks like TNT, USA and the like.

I've never seen an Alltel commercial on local Los Angeles TV.

 

Same here. And alltel has no business claiming they have the largest network.

 

That's their major stretching of the truth. They have the largest "geographical" network, which is mostly rural...

There's a thread in the Verizon forum asking "Is Verizon where you are?". There should be a similar one for Alltel asking the same question. The answer would be a flat NO for you, me, and many others.

 

In my area, we are lucky. We have native Verizon, Sprint, Alltel, AT&T, T-Mobile, and MetroPCS.

 

alltel has more coverage than some of the bigger carriers in square miles and probably more towers to but not in the bigger cities or as many customers . even verizon and att don't have coverage or their on towers in some locations so they have to depend on other carriers for the service but you are not charged for it and some times you don't know that you are roaming .

 

Here I have Verizon, ATT, Tmobile, Cricket, Sprint, Nextel. To the south 3 miles there are all of those and Alltel.

 

AllTel Only 40 Best Buy stores in the AllTel footprint? I wonder how many best buy shops are actually in an AllTel area? I guess that the Best Buys in Florida are getting ready. I went there a few weeks back and noticed that the Verizon postpaid services weren't there and T-Mobile had taken its place.

 

Tallahassee has SouthernLINC, but no MetroPCS, along with the other carriers. Too bad SouthernLINC isn't selling its service around here. I think they have service only to placate the rest of the panhandle and southern Georgia... And to avoid roaming on Nextel.

 

Without knowing for sure, I'd bet there are a bit more than 40 Best Buys in all of alltel licensed territory. Wikipedia says 1,400 total in the US. It sounds like it might be a trial run, they required a certain market share, or it was to replace/add to other carriers in Best Buy in areas that were under-performing. But I'm sure it's good news for alltel as it's another way to reach potential customers.

 

But regardless if it's a national channel there must be some way that Alltel can pick and choose which markets to run the commercials and I still think this is a mistake. We shouldn't have to watch advertising from a carrier that has no presence in So. Cal. What's the point? It's a waste of money for Alltel and only causes confusion among people who might think they can go to their local Radio Shack or Best But and sign up for Alltel service. Alltel is not a true National carrier and shouldn't be advertising in every market in the US. I know someone in Philadelphia for example won't see the same commercials as someone in Los Angeles even when watching the same cable network like TNT or USA. Local advertisers run commericals on national stations as well. I know I won't see Carls Jr. commercials when I visit the East Coast because they're called Hardee's there. And I won't see Hardee's commercials here. But both advertise on National cable stations but only where they need to. So it can be controlled by market.

 

The only thing is, larry, that cable companies insert local specified commercials on national cable channels. They do this overriding the cable channels feed, substituting local over national.

Conversely, many times cable companies don't insert local adds, so we see the national ones. I can't tell you how many times I see ads for CiCi's Pizza, Sonic, Ruby Tuesday on various cable channels. None of these restaurants are available in Southern California (on a large scale) although Sonic has only one restaurant in all of Greater Los Angeles. Many of them have a strong enough national presence to allow for national advertising.

While I think it is ridiculous for Alltel to advertise nationally when they are FAR from being national, apparently the cable networks don't care. I believe Alltel KNOWS exactly what they're doing. I think they want people outside of their service area to know about their service. It's just ironic that all of the major cities not able to have Alltel service outnumber the areas that do by a considerable margin. The only large metro areas that have native Alltel service are Phoenix, Tampa Bay, and Cleveland. New Orleans, Oklahoma City and some mid-size metro's in North Carolina are next in population size with native coverage as well. That leaves most of urban US out of Alltel's range.

I guess the fact that their native coverage covers vast swaths of vacant land in Montana, the Dakotas, and Nevada lead them to believe they are much larger than they really are. They want to be national, but they don't have the major market licenses to prove it. Why they didn't go for the recent spectrum auctions is beyond me. MetroPCS and Cricket are beginning to have more of a national presence than Alltel!

 

Wirelessly posted (Quint's Pearl: BlackBerry8130/4.3.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/105)

Atlanta is a bit of an anomaly... AllTel has service in one county in all of the metro area. It's strange knowing that the service is only in that one county and no one else can get it.
AllTel has a very small presence in California, I think they're in Mammoth Lakes, which must be quite a ways from Los Angeles

 

Only Mono, Inyo, and Imperial Counties in California have Alltel native. This accounts for less than 1% of the available population base in this state.

 

alltel is in GA. not in Atlanta really just lke quint said. they are bigger in south GA , but honestly even if they do have native in South GA, they are probably one of the least used. except by people that live in the sticks like bambridge or some other part of GA that is so rural that they are the only thing there. everything else in GA is ATT and Verizon.

 

I only know two people that have Alltel in my area. Even in the interior part of my county where cell phone coverage is hit or miss, Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T still work real well depending on where you are.

 

Yeah I had been seeing those CiCi's Pizza commercials for a while and actually got on and checked their web site to find the nearest location because I wanted to go try it out. To my surprise the closest one was in Arizona! I figured it was another advertising mistake and I no longer see those commecials. As for Sonic don't they have a few locations here? I know there's one in Fullerton just a few miles from where I live. I thought I've seen others around as well.

Up until the Alltel commercials started running here I don't remember ever seeing advertising of a product that wasn't availble here. But since then I've seen a few like CiCi's.

 

Before Alltel was in those places wasn't it Cellular One? I don't remember ever seeing any Cellular One commercials here.

 

Alltel has no coverage in the Northeast, they rely on Verizon and Sprint for roaming.

 

I thought Best Buy already carried Alltel phones and etc.

 

And???? Verizon and Sprint have no coverage in the UP of Michigan and MANY MANY other large swaths of land, att didn't until they bought cell one dobson....just because there aren't a lot of people there doesn't mean it is any less important to cover or consider.

Alltel does point in fact have the largest geographical coverage that they own and operate. There is no stretching that and they have every business claiming it. ATT claims it on worldwide coverage with roaming....that is a MAJOR stretch. Verizon claims most reliable.....yeah okay.....Alltel's is still more honest.

Not to my knowledge. So far I've seen Sprint, At&t and Verizon in Best Buy. But no Alltel until this announcement. In my area the Best Buy and Alltel store are right next to eachother so I'm curious what they will do.

 

And Cellular One knew better than to advertise in areas they don't have service...:browani:

 

Looks like Alltel cell phones are coming to Best Buy in the near future. Alltel and Best Buy announced their agreement today, which will allow the electonics store to sell the carrier branded phones at 40 different locations. All 40 locations are within Alltel’s coverage area - although, this may be a good opportunity for the carrier to expand (right?).

The Alltel and Best Buy agreement goes into effect on May 25th. At that time you’ll be able to buy phones and activate new Alltel accounts from within the Best Buy store. Existing users will be able to change their plans in-store as well.

 

You basically repeated the same information as the first post in this thread?