The Federal Communications Commission has delayed approving AT&T’s January purchase of Atlantic Tele-Network’s (ATNI) Alltel retail operations while the companies hammer out plans to move over the subscriber base. In a statement, the FCC says it’s stopping the clock on an informal 180-day review period, 175 days into the investigation. The problem, it says, is that it hasn’t received details about how AT&T will help Alltel’s prepaid customers move onto a new network, “despite several Commission staff follow-up conversations about the importance of transitioning prepaid customers.”
FCC delays AT&T’s Alltel buyout over fears it could leave prepaid customers behind
is a senior tech and policy editor focused on online platforms and free expression. Adi has covered virtual and augmented reality, the history of computing, and more for The Verge since 2011.
AT&T agreed to pay $780 million to acquire spectrum, licenses, retail locations, and customers from ATNI’s Alltel branch — which was itself spun off when Verizon acquired most of Alltel in 2008. AT&T already has a large part of the former business, and if this sale is approved, all its old assets will be in the hands of AT&T or Verizon. For subscribers on ATNI’s Alltel, that means moving from a CDMA network to one based around GSM and LTE.
Based on the FCC’s statement, AT&T seems to have laid out a roadmap for anyone on a contract-based postpaid plan. But of ATNI’s 591,000 mobile customers, 182,000 are prepaid, and ATNI credited that segment with driving a small growth in total subscribers earlier this year. Fortunately for AT&T, the FCC hasn’t expressed any larger problems with the deal in this statement: as soon as it has an explanation, it will restart the approval clock.
Update: AT&T has provided the below statement in response to the FCC’s decision.
“AT&T is extremely disappointed at the FCC delay today on this small transaction. AT&T is ready, willing, and able to make significant network investments in these rural territories to bring HSPA+ and LTE services to Allied’s customers, an investment that will not occur but for this transaction. AT&T has actively worked to address FCC concerns and will continue to work with the Commission until all issues are resolved.”
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