Alltel buys Midwest Wireless

Continuing its expansion tear, Alltel announced today it has agreed to purchase fellow Tier II carrier Midwest Wireless, adding 400,000 customers to Alltel’s already sizable customer base and bringing new markets in Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin into its footprint.

Alltel said it would pay $1.075 billion in cash to acquire Midwest’s customers, its PCS and cellular spectrum and its CDMA network assets. The companies expect to close the deal in the first half of 2006.

"The Midwest Wireless business strengthens our position in the wireless industry by adding CDMA properties that are contiguous to our existing markets in the Midwestern U.S.," Alltel president and CEO Scott Ford said in a statement.

In January, Alltel announced it was buying Western Wireless and all of its U.S. and international networks for $6 billion in cash and stock. With well over 10 million wireless subscribers Alltel is certainly the largest Tier II carrier in the U.S. and the fifth largest overall.

In January, Alltel announced it was buying Western Wireless and all of its U.S. and international networks for $6 billion in cash and stock. With well over 10 million wireless subscribers Alltel is certainly the largest Tier II carrier in the U.S. and the fifth largest overall.

Midwest’s coverage area spans dozens of counties throughout northern and eastern Iowa, southern Minnesota and western Wisconsin, overlapping Alltel’s own footprint to the west and south of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Midwest’s footprint covers a population of 1.9 million with its 850 MHz CDMA 1X network, plus the company owns PCS licenses in several markets.

Alltel on Thursday also announced it is launching its first EV-DO handset, the Motorola RAZR V3c, and is launching a video streaming service through MobiTV to support the high-powered handset. Alltel launched EV-DO networks in Tampa, Fla., and in Cleveland and Akron, Ohio, in March and in Oklahoma City in September. Though the service is only available in a few of Alltel’s mid-sized markets, the EV-DO phone is backwards compatible to 1X networks, allowing customers to access video content over the entire CDMA footprint, though at slower data rates.