Scheduled conveniently ahead of next week’s Competitive Carrier Association event, Verizon Wireless this week kicked off its second LTE in Rural America program. The event is designed to bring together smaller wireless operators looking to launch LTE services with the help of the nation’s largest wireless operator.
Verizon Wireless noted that a pair of carriers have already launched commercial services through the program – Cellcom in Wisconsin and Pioneer Cellular in Oklahoma – with six more carriers expected to offer services by the end of the year and nine additional carriers signed on for 2013. Verizon Wireless noted it has signed agreements covering more than 2.7 million potential customers across 14 states.
The program, which was initiated in 2010, calls for Verizon Wireless to lease all 22 megahertz upper C-Block, 700 MHz spectrum it controls to the rural operator until at least 2029. Those rural operators are then charged with building out the physical network that can then have back-end services run through Verizon Wireless’ switches.
In return for building out the network, Verizon Wireless has agreed to not build out its own network in those markets and will rely on the rural operator to provide roaming services for Verizon Wireless customers, and in turn to provide nationwide LTE roaming to the rural operators. The agreement is similar to the affiliate program used by Sprint to build out its PCS network in the late 1990s, which in the end resulted in Sprint having to acquire most of those affiliates due to competitive clauses in their contracts following Sprint’s $35 billion acquisition of Nextel Communications in 2004.
Verizon Wireless’ LTE in Rural America program has garnered strong reaction from both sides as proponents of the offering, including those carriers that have signed up for the program, claim it allows them to move quickly to market with a robust 4G offering, something that as rural carriers they have never been able to do in the past.
However, many also continue to look skeptically at the program as Verizon Wireless has also been pushing a so-called 700 MHz “band plan” that does not require device and equipment makers to supply products that include all of the different 700 MHz spectrum bands auctioned by the government, including those that were acquired by rural operators. This has left many, including CCA, arguing that equipment makers will bypass building products that support all the 700 MHz spectrum bands and this limit interoperability.
Verizon Wireless has stated that equipment makers only needed to support its band 13, while AT&T Mobility is pushing only for support of its band 17 in the 700 MHz band. These were supported by the 3GPP that did require standards for interoperability between the different bands.
Bored? Why not follow me on Twitter?
