Andre Yoskowitz
20 Sep 2013 22:36
The FCC has approved AT&T's proposed acquisition of Atlantic Tele-Network's (Alltel) retail wireless business.
Although the agency says the transaction "will likely cause some competitive and other public interest harms in several local markets" it is approving the deal since AT&T has accepted a number of conditions.
One such condition is that AT&T must maintain Alltel's CDMA network through June 2015.
The approval was not a guarantee. In August, FCC stopped reviewing the transaction because they said AT&T did not provide enough information on how the carrier would integrate Alltel's prepaid customers to its network.
Besides the agreement to keep the CDMA network running, AT&T also agreed to ensure that all of Alltel's CDMA network footprint would be covered by the company's own HSPA+ faux-4G service within 15 months of the transaction closing. Additionally, 75 percent of the footprint must have access to LTE within 18 months.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, all Alltel customers will be provided "a handset comparable to his or her existing handset, at no cost to the customer and without requiring a contract extension."
AT&T acquired 600,000 customers and all of Alltel's remaining spectrum for $780 million.