Friday, May 21, 2010

The New Alltel: Serving 22 States!

We have yet to see the other shoe drop. The "New Alltel", the part purchased by ATN, has the potential of soon offering local service in 22 states. They can do this by selling service in their Commnet markets. I put together a Map of Alltel and Commnet Combined Properties.

They have so little coverage in some of those states it wouldn't make economic sense. However, in Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah there are lots of Commnet cell sites, and they will most likely add those to their new Alltel holdings in 6 other states. Throw in the Florida Keys and the odd city in Wyoming and you've got a basketful of potential local service areas. Commnet has enough coverage to have offered local service in the Four Corners area of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah, even before acquiring Alltel. Additionally, they are building a 4G broadband wireless network in northeast Arizona.

The holdup is that they are using the Alltel name, and the "Old" Alltel is still operating in most of those Commnet markets. They will eventually be sold to AT&T to satisfy Fed competitive concerns, and then the "New" Alltel can take over. It may be tricky to appeal to customers by saying, "If you liked their Alltel, you'll like our Alltel." But that's why the Marketing people make the big bucks. "Chad is still here, he just moved across the street."

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is there new advertising with Chad then in these areas?

Scott W said...

I haven't heard of any TV spots featuring Chad, but his blog shows him still making lots of personal appearances.