Georgia Cellcos Protest Verizon-ATN Deal

Verizon Wireless might be required to divest some of its wireless holdings as part of its merger with Alltel, but not everyone is pleased about that. A group of regional wireless companies calling themselves the “Georgia Partners” have renewed a request to the FCC to deny Verizon’s application to sell certain wireless assets to Atlantic Tele-Network Inc. (ATN)

Over the summer Verizon agreed to sell wireless spectrum licenses and network assets that serve over 800,000 subscribers primarily in rural areas across Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Illinois, Ohio, and Idaho to ATN, for $200 million.

Bulloch Cellular Inc., Pineland Cellular Inc., Planters Rural Cellular Inc. and Plant

Cellular RSA 8 Inc. collectively say the sale in Georgia is against the public interest. That’s because service there would be administered by Commnet, which ATN purchased in 2005. Commnet has no retail customers and derives all its revenue from a “roam-only” wholesale business model.

Commnet has made a “frank admission that it plans to overlay the entire Georgia Cluster with a ‘roam-only’ GSM network in order to squeeze additional revenue,” the companies write in their petition.

Overlaying a GSM network on top of the CDMA network will lead to less spectrum dedicated to subscribers in the “Georgia Cluster.”

Georgia Partners write: “Spectrum is the lifeblood of a successful retail mobile network. Customer satisfaction, which is necessary to remain a viable competitor, hinges on an operator maximizing the resources available to it, including spectrum. Overlaying the Georgia Cluster with a second, “roam-only” network will harm the quality of service for all retail customers in the Georgia Cluster, which will cause churn to other competing wireless carriers thereby harming competition and the public interest.”

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