J.D Power and Associates just issued Volume 2 of their Wireless Customer Care report, which runs from January to June of 2009.
It’s a big three-way tie this time around, with T-Mobile, Alltel, and Verizon all taking a victory lap. AT&T follows behind with an “About Average” (3/5) rating, while Sprint stumbles with a paltry 2/5.
Looks like Alltel’s finally beginning to rub off on Verizon, with the latter adopting one of the finest features of their new found property. Earlier this morning, Verizon announced that they’d be taking on Alltel’s My Circle option, but under the name “Friends and Family”.
It’s been nearly five months since Verizon announced their plans to buy out Alltel, but they’ve finally leaped the last hurdle. Just minutes ago, the FCC signed off on the $28.1 billion dollar deal (Verizon is paying $5.9 billion, and assuming $22.2 billion of Alltel’s debt.), clearing the way for its finalization.
The FCC’s stamp of approval doesn’t come without strings attached, however. Amongst other conditions, Verizon will be required to maintain any roaming agreements Alltel has with other carriers for at least four years.
Alltel is now selling the LG Rhythm in two colors – white and black — for $119.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate and two-year service agreement. Features include a 1-inch circular (?) touchscreen, 1.3-megapixel camera, MP3 player plus an FM transmitter (nice), GPS, support for web videos, and Bluetooth.
Oh, and you also get a big intangible with any Alltel product — one of the dreamiest spokespeople in the wireless industry; that Chad guy. How in the hell does he do that with his hair? It’s beautiful.
Full release after the jump…
The rumors floating around yesterday are true. Verizon Wireless has just announced that they will be acquiring Alltel for $28.1 billion. The acquisition should be completed by year’s end. Full release after the jump.
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Alltel, the little carrier that could, is in talks with Verizon to merge this year. Verizon is expected to pay eight times Alltel’s EBITDA (”Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization”). How much that is we do not know but it’s definitely more than fifty dollars.
UPDATE – The deal could be about $27 billion, according to Reuters.
He’s installing the 4G network by himself. Flickr’d.
No love for CDMA. Alltel, which this map shows as being popular in what us latte-drinking, east coast elite call “fly-over country,” has committed its 4G future to LTE, a GSM technology. While the transition is still a ways away—like, three to five years away—the corp’s COO cautioned that “you should not expect to see us talking about 4G anytime at least in 2008.”
Basically, Alltel, one day, will move toward LTE. Just don’t ask about it for a few years.
The best is that we’re already talking about 4G when 3G hasn’t even rolled out yet for most folks.
Is it just me or is Alltel getting a decent amount of cool devices lately? The latest device to hit Alltel store shelves is a titanium-colored BlackBerry Curve 8330. This one is akin to the Curve available on AT&T because it lacks Wi-Fi, but has GPS. A new 2-year contract will fetch the Curve at $230 starting May 1, but you can pre-order now.
The very-businesslike MOTO Q9c will be available this summer to Alltel subscribers in lime green or “licorice” colors. I certainly don’t mean for anyone to take this personally, but it’s my opinion that lime green is a ridiculous color for a business-oriented cell phone (or any type of gadget, for that matter). That’s just me, though. That’s just me.
I’m guessing that the “licorice” version is a little more subdued, although Motorola’s press release didn’t indicate whether it was red or black licorice. If it’s blazingly bright red in color, you’re going to have to decide which is the lesser of two evils for you. Luckily, it’s black licorice. Trust me.
The Q9c for the Alltel network will be available sometime this summer for $99 after a $100 mail-in rebate and two-year service agreement.
Just got the LG Glimmer in from Alltel so I took a few shots before the real review. It’s basically a slider phone with haptic touch screen and some music/video playback features. It’s quite solid and heavier than I expected and the screen is quite bright and readable. Overall I wouldn’t kick it out of bed for eating crackers, as my grandfather used to say. That was after he drank.
Look for a full review next week.
Click on the image for an upright shot
This morning Alltel announced the addition of the clamshell Samsung Muse to their lineup. The music-centric Muse has a dedicated music key and is a shade of midnight blue. Other features include an MP3 player with 64MB of internal memory, 2-megapixel camera (video), GPS, stereo Bluetooth and access to Alltel’s XM mobile radio service, the Muse doesn’t sound all that bad. It goes for a mere $90.
Alltel, those other guys who carry cellphone signals for people, will be launching the LG Glimmer soon. The brother of the Shine, on Verizon, the Glimmer is a media-centered phone with a sliding T9 keypad and shiny exterior. Oh, and a touchtastic touchscreen.
MicroSD, 3G, and a 2-Megapixel camera round out this attractive phone, and it should be out in about a month.
Alltel to hop touchscreen bandwagon with LG [Electronista]
I have met only one person in my life who uses Alltel and she was from the deep dark South, so maybe this post is for her.
Ryan Newman won the Daytona 500 at the weekend; he was alarmingly gracious when I saw him on SportsCenter. (Larry the Cable Guy insists that the race is pretty much sacred in the South. I trust his opinion.) How does this tie into Alltel?
Alletl is Newman’s main sponsor. What else could it have been?
In celebration of Newman’s win—it was the 50th anniversary of the race—Alltell will give 500 bonus minutes to new subscribers and current subscribers who add an additional line to their account. Alltel’s also giving away a Samsung Hue with the purchase of one—buy one, get one free. Easy enough.
Alltel Wireless is teaming with mobile entertainment software company mSpot to facilitate over-the-air music synching and streaming to the MOTOROKR Z6M. Here’s how it works.
For $3.99 per month (or $9.99 for three months), you can stream and simultaneously synchronize music files on your computer to your phone. There’s a piece of software that you install on your computer that manages the connection to your phone and you use the mSpot Remix mobile client on the phone itself.
Alltel Wireless, which is now known to follow its name with the phrase "America’s largest network," announced yesterday the ability to access mywaves mobile video service on several of its phones (take that, YouTube!) and damn it all if it didn’t slip right by the CrunchGear news desk.
The service is $3.99 per month and, oh yeah, why should you care? Well, mywaves has more than 100,000 channels with more than 1 million users adding daily to the selection. And while you can access videos if you’re on Cingular, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon, and various Canadian carriers, the BREW experience was, let’s say, less than video-rific. So, mywaves developed a better BREW app for Alltel customers to use.
There’s a mishmash of videos available for all mywaves users, regardless of platform. Some are uploaded by regular users and others come from Comedy Central, CNN, MTV, VH1 and so forth. Also, should you choose to do so, mywaves lets you embed a player on your MySpace page (or any other Website, for that matter) to display your own customized video channels.
Alltel Wireless First Carrier to Launch ‘mywaves’ Mobile Video Service [Yahoo! Finance]
This is kinda neat if you find yourself often getting phone calls from parties unknown. Alltel is rolling out with City ID, an enhanced Caller ID service that attempts to identify all those pesky “unknown” phone numbers by city and state. That way, if you get a call from Some Dude and the number doesn’t show up, the phone will display the city and state of the incoming call. The service will debut on the LG AX275 and will eventually cost $1.99 per month.
I want to know what the limitations are. Will my prison guard uncle be able to make secret calls anymore? They make for the best pranks. Just ask John.
City ID [Alltel]
Alltel, you know, that other cellphone carrier, is now proactively positioning itself for a sale, according to Phone Scoop’s Ouija board. Three private equity groups are looking at snapping up the small-but-important carrier. No larger networks have shown interest, which isn’t that odd. As the Big Four (Sprint, Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile) have coast-to-coast networks of their own, buying up an overlapping provider doesn’t make any sense. Also, Alltel’s subscriber base really isn’t big enough to justify a merging acquisition.
This is all likely good news for Alltel’s subscribers. The carrier is known for innovative plans and features, usually introducing pricing and services months before the larger groups. T-Mobile’s “Fave Five” is a good example. Alltel had a calling ring-style unlimited group months before.
If the bidding doesn’t get to hot, expect to hear some soft of announcement within the next month and a half, but don’t expect any major ripples in the cellphone world.
Alltel begins serious discussions for a sale [Phone Scoop]
About this time last year, I took a look at the Samsung Trace and went “Damn, this is a thin phone. I’m probably going to break it in the next two weeks.” I didn’t, but the new Samsung Wafer from Alltel Wireless is quite the skinny puppy as well. Aside from having a thin body and being called the SCH-R510 when it’s feeling grouchy, this phone comes loaded with some sweet features. Inside you’ll find a 1.3-megapixel camera, that wacky Alltel desktop widget UI, XM Radio, Axcess TV, and My Circle features.
Seems like one of the better Samsung phones I’ve seen in the past few months. How could it get any better between the XM Radio and the thin-design? Try a $49 price-tag after a $50 mail-in rebate. Booh yah!
Alltel Gets Super Thin Samsung Wafer With XM Radio Mobile [Gizmodo]
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Verizon is looking to topple Cingular as the nation’s largest carrier and Alltel is standing in their way. So what does a big bully do in this situation? They buy ‘em out. Word on the street is that Verizon is putting in a bid to swoop up Alltel and beat out Cingular/AT&T by about 10 million users. If the FCC gives them the thumbs up we’ll have to hear that annoying catchphrase over and over and over again.
Verizon Beats Out Cingular [Mobile Mag]
