COLUMBUS, Ga.-Alltel Corp. said it plans to turn off service to an unspecified number of former Public Service Cellular customers who are still on legacy TDMA and GSM networks. The carrier plans to shut off the service by Dec. 28 as part of an ongoing network transition to Alltel’s preferred CDMA technology.
Alltel acquired Reynolds, Ga.-based PSC earlier this year and began selling its products and services in PSC’s markets in July. PSC served 54,000 customers in a 27-county area of western Georgia and eastern Alabama, with a licensed population of about 900,000 potential customers.
Alltel said it put about $15 million into the PSC market transition and made exclusive offers-including deeply discounted phones-to former PSC customers to entice them to switch to Alltel’s CDMA-based services. The carrier also said it waived the usual activation fee and offered a free month’s service and $40 in free accessories to PSC customers who chose Alltel as their new carrier.
Alltel also is working on a similar transition with a network it acquired from Cingular Wireless L.LC. as part of Cingular’s required divestitures following its purchase of AT&T Wireless Services Inc.
In total, the two deals included 267,000 subscribers. Analysts estimated that as of the third quarter, Alltel had lost about 94,000 of those customers to other operators, but had managed to hold onto about 60,000 subscribers. Analysts predict Alltel is likely to lose about half of the remaining 113,000 customers needing to be transitioned in both markets.
