Regional wireless provider Dobson Communications Corp. said it is closing its Fairbanks, Alaska, call center, which currently serves the carrier’s Cellular One customers in Fairbanks and Juneau, and transferring operations to its Duluth, Minn., call center. The Duluth center currently handles Dobson’s customers in Anchorage and Alaska rural service area 2, which the carrier assumed operations of late last year in a deal with AT&T Wireless Services Inc.
Dobson noted the closure would affect 16 employees who have been offered severance packages and opportunities to transfer to other positions within the organization. The action will allow the carrier to redirect money that would have been used to upgrade the center to capital investments on its Alaska network, including the overlay of the current TDMA-based network with GSM/GPRS/EDGE technologies scheduled for the end of this month.
Dobson said it will now operate call centers in five states, including Maryland, Minnesota, New York, Ohio and Oklahoma.
Dobson also announced its Dobson Cellular Systems Inc. subsidiary has completed a $28 million acquisition of NPI-Omnipoint Wireless L.L.C., which provides GSM service in northern Michigan from Grand Rapids and Saginaw to the Canadian border. NPI-Omnipoint owns PCS licenses covering 1.2 million potential customers and has built a network covering approximately 1 million pops and serving 35,000 subscribers.
The acquisition is expected to fit in with Dobson’s current Michigan operations, which include cellular licenses for RSAs 1, 3, 5 and 10 in northern Michigan, including Ludington, Traverse City and Petoskey, and add 650,000 pops to the carrier’s network. Dobson plans to expand the coverage and upgrade the network including the addition of GPRS data services.
