Commnet Wireless creates joint venture with tribal stimulus winner

Atlantic Tele-Network, the company that now owns a substantial part of the former Alltel Wireless, said today that its Commnet Wireless subsidiary has created a joint venture with the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority to provide mobile 3G and 4G wireless using a network constructed in part with $32.1 million provided through the broadband stimulus program.

The Navajo Tribal Utility Authority announced last year that it would work with Commnet to construct the network. The joint venture announced today, to be known as NTUA Wireless LLC, formalizes that arrangement.

Commnet’s core business is operating a wholesale roaming network for rural areas. A large portion of its network assets are in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah—the same states where the NTUA Wireless network will be built—and Commnet already had spectrum licenses, including 700 MHz spectrum, covering a large part of the serving area, ATN President and CEO Michael Prior said in an interview.

Prior added that about two-thirds of the project’s total costs will involve upgrading fiber infrastructure on the Navajo tribal lands covered by the stimulus awards to support a higher-speed wireless network. The stimulus funding, which came in the form of a grant, will cover about 70% of project costs, with funding provided by the partners covering the other 30%.

Lifeline plans
The partners also said today that NTUA Wireless would petition to be designated an eligible telecommunications carrier with the goal of being able to offer discounted phone service through the Universal Service program’s low-income Lifeline program. Currently that program pays up to $10 a month to low-income users toward the cost of voice service. About 35 states allow the money to go toward wireless rather than wireline service. The Federal Communications Commission is considering the possibility of transitioning that program to focus on broadband service.

In seeking to obtain more wide scale broadband adoption, Prior said, “there’s often an income aspect as well as just challenging terrain.” In a lower-income area such as the Navajo Nation, he said the Lifeline program could help address affordability challenges for potential customers.

Atlantic Tele-Network, which has made several acquisitions since its establishment in 1987, also has fiber network assets that it operates through its ION and Sovernet Communications subsidiaries. Both of those subsidiaries won broadband stimulus funding of their own. ION garnered $39.7 million to build a middle-mile fiber network in New York State and Sovernet won $33.6 million for a middle-mile fiber network in Vermont.