AT&T said it closed on its deal to...
AT&T said it closed on its deal to buy former Alltel spectrum licenses and other assets from Atlantic Tele-Network, shortly after the FCC’s Wireless Bureau cleared the deal Friday (http://soc.att.com/16CjtaH). The $780 million purchase, announced in January, gives AT&T access…
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to spectrum, mainly on the 850 MHz band, which covers 4.5 million potential customers in rural portions of Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Ohio, North Carolina and South Carolina. The FCC’s Friday order authorizing the deal indicates it still has concerns about the transfer, which “will likely cause some competitive and other public interest harms in several local markets” (http://bit.ly/18Swiha). The agency paused its review of the deal in August because it needed additional details on AT&T’s plans to migrate ATN’s prepaid customers onto its network (CD Aug 28 p11). AT&T has since committed to “undertake an aggressive build-out schedule” to upgrade the ATN service areas to its 4G HSPA+ service within 15 months of the deal’s closing and LTE within 18 months, as well as committed to operate Alltel’s 3G Evolution Data Optimized network through June 2015 to “ensure a reasonable transition for providers who have been relying on CDMA and Evolution Data Optimized roaming through the Allied networks,” the FCC said in the order. Allied is a wholly owned subsidiary of ATN. AT&T also agreed to “certain commitments with respect to customer transition and migration,” notably providing ATN subscribers with a comparable phone for free that does not require an extended contract. AT&T also said it’s “exploring opportunities to monetize some or all of its remaining wireless tower assets. The carrier said it will post its Q3 results Oct. 23.