Alltel

In 1943, the Allied Telephone Company, a small business specializing in installing telephone poles and cabling for telephone companies across Arkansas, was founded by Charles Miller and Hugh Willbourn, Jr. In 1945, they opened a storefront in the Hillcrest district of Little Rock. The business sold electrical appliances in the front of the building, and the company enabled Wilbourn and Miller to buy telephone equipment wholesale.

Alltel's modern history begins in 1983 when Allied Telephone and Mid-Continent Telephone merged. Mid-Continent Telephone was originally a theatre company and started in 1931 by Eddie Ruben and Joe L. Floyd in Minnesota. In 1985, Alltel launched its first wireless system in Charlotte, North Carolina. In 1993, Alltel opened its first wireless retail store. In 1997, the company's wireless and wireline businesses were combined 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. The wireline services business of Alltel merged with Valor Telecom and was named Windstream Communications on April 10, 2006. The merger-spinoff process ended July 17, 2006 when Windstream began operations.

On May 20, 2007, Alltel announced an agreement to be sold to two private-equity firms: TPG Capital and GS Capital Partners. Under the deal, the two firms paid $71.50 a share in cash, or $27.5 billion, a 10% premium over Alltel's May 18, 2007 closing price.

At its peak, Alltel operated a network in 34 states, with a wireless coverage footprint comprising the largest network in the United States by area. The company focused on small to medium size cities providing wireless services to residential and business customers in all 50 states through roaming agreements with Verizon and Sprint. These agreements gave Alltel customers access to nationwide service, while providing those carriers coverage in rural areas.

On June 5, 2008, Verizon Wireless announced it would acquire the majority of Alltel Wireless in a deal valued at $28.1 billion. The merger was approved by the Federal Communications Commission on the condition that Verizon divest 105 Alltel markets. On May 8, 2009, AT&T announced it would acquire 79 of the divested wireless properties, including licenses, network assets, and 1.5 million current subscribers, primarily in rural areas across 18 states.

On April 26, 2010, Atlantic Tele-Network acquired the remaining 26 divested Alltel markets, including licenses, network assets and 800,000 subscribers. These remaining markets continued to be operated by Allied Wireless, a subsidiary of ATN, under the Alltel name. On September 20, 2013, AT&T announced they had completed the acquisition of Alltel from Atlantic Tele-Network. AT&T immediately began plans to upgrade the former Alltel network and to move customers to the AT&T network by midyear 2014. The transition completed in February 2015 with all Alltel customers becoming a part of the AT&T network. In early 2016, AT&T dissolved Alltel Wireless.

Alltel's networks consisted of analog and digital systems operating primarily on the 850 MHz (3GPP2 Band Class 0) cellular band, much like Verizon Wireless. Native Alltel markets consisted of both analog (AMPS) and digital (CDMA) technologies. Virtually 100 percent of markets had 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. Alltel posted a three phase turn down schedule in response to the FCC decision stating that by March 1, 2008 A and B side carriers are no longer required to support analog. The analog systems were retired by the end of 2008. While Alltel had not outlined its future path, merger partner Verizon Wireless had already announced plans to switch to GSM-based LTE.

Wireless network coverage

There were Alltel-owned and -operated networks in parts of 6 states. Alltel utilized roaming agreements with competing providers to provide coast-to-coast service. Roaming agreements in the United States were primarily with Verizon and Sprint until the completion of the migration of all customers to the AT&T network.

Handset and technical specifics

Handsets were typically manufactured by Motorola, LG, Research In Motion (i.e., BlackBerry), Nokia, HTC, Samsung, Palm, and Pantech Curitel.

Network equipment was manufactured by Lucent Technologies, Motorola, Nortel, Juniper Networks and Cisco.