Alltel (NYSE: AT) is a telecommunications company with headquarters in the Riverdale neighborhood of Little Rock, Arkansas. Alltel provides wireless, local telephone, long-distance, Internet and high-speed data services to residential and business customers in 36 states.

With a market cap of $24.79 billion and over 15 million customers as of early 2006, Alltel is the largest regional mobile phone company in America, and the fifth largest mobile phone company overall. The wireless group provides service in parts of 36 states. The company mainly focuses on small to medium-sized cities, but has low-cost roaming agreements with the major national CDMA carriers, especially Verizon Wireless and Sprint-Nextel, in order to provide national service, in turn providing those carriers with coverage in rural areas. When Alltel acquired Western Wireless in 2005 it also gained a large GSM footprint as well. While it does not offer GSM service to its own customers, Alltel has indicated that it will continue to maintain the GSM footprint (and perhaps even expand it) to provide roaming service to GSM users of other wireless carriers. Alltel advertises itself as "owner and operator of the nation's largest wireless network"; this claim refers to geographical coverage of its network rather than number of Alltel customers or population covered.

History

In 1943, Allied Telephone Co., a small business specializing in installing telephone poles and cabling for telephone companies across Arkansas, was founded by Charles Miller and Hugh Willbourn, Jr.

Alltel's modern history begins in 1983 when Allied Telephone and Mid-Continent Telephone, founded by Weldon W. Case and his brother, Nelson H., merged. In 1985, Alltel launched its first wireless system in Charlotte, North Carolina and by 1993 Alltel had opened its first wireless retail store. Alltel was named to the S&P 500 Index in 1994. By 1996 long-distance service was offered and in 1997 the company's wireless and wireline businesses converged into a single organization.

On December 9, 2005 Alltel announced that it would become a wireless-only company, simultaneously merging and building a spin-off company for its wireline services. [1] This company is to be merged with Valor Telecom, which on April 10, 2006 announced it will take the name Windstream Communications and is expected to begin operations under the new brand in mid-2006. [2]

Network technology

Alltel networks consist of analog and digital systems operating primarily on the 800 MHz cellular band, much like Verizon Wireless. Alltel has recently added a few 1900 MHz PCS sites in various places, such as Jacksonville, Florida and Wichita, Kansas for greater system capacity. Native Alltel markets consist of both analog (AMPS) and digital (CDMA) technologies. Select markets have been outfitted with 3G 1xEV-DO digital technology, which allows for additional battery life and faster download times when using Internet or BREW-based applications. AMPS is still in place and in use in most places, but the company acknowledges that it is aggressively converting analog customers to digital technology. In 2005, an Alltel spokesman stated that only 15% of its customer base still uses analog. Alltel has yet to release official plans in response to the FCC decision stating that by March 1, 2008 A and B side carriers are no longer required to support analog.

Roaming partners

To further extend service to its customers, Alltel uses roaming agreements with competing providers to provide reliable coast-to-coast service. Roaming agreements are primarily with Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel, but other arrangements are in place with U.S. Cellular, Cingular Wireless (Mostly for AMPS) and most Canadian cellular providers. Since many of these roaming partners operate in the 800 MHz or 1900 MHz CDMA band, Alltel customers on national calling plans are required to use tri-mode (800 AMPS, 800 CDMA, 1900 CDMA) handsets.

On May 9, 2006 Alltel and Sprint Nextel agreed on a new nationwide roaming partnership. (Press releases: Alltel; Sprint) Unlike Alltel's voice and 1xRTT roaming agreement with Verizon Wireless, the new reciprocal roaming agreement is for both voice and 1xEV-DO data roaming coverage. This agreement gives Alltel customers access to Sprint's voice, 1xRTT, and 1xEV-DO networks and gives Sprint customers access to Alltel's denser rural 1xEV-DO voice and data coverage. This agreement is the first of its kind between wireless carriers in the United States.