LITTLE ROCK, Ark.-Alltel Corp. said it has completed its $1.9 billion purchase of local telephone properties in Kentucky from Verizon Communications Inc. and its $1.6 billion dollar purchase of CenturyTel Inc.’s wireless assets.
The wireless properties include more than 700,000 customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Texas and Wisconsin, and will increase Alltel’s wireless customer base to more than 7.5 million. The deal also included minority partnership interests in cellular operations of about 1.8 million proportionate potential customers and personal communications services licenses covering 1.3 million POPs in Wisconsin and Iowa.
Alltel said it expects to have CenturyTel’s TDMA network converted to its own CDMA technology by the end of the third quarter and that it will use and bill customers under the CenturyTel name until it completes a network and billing conversion later this year.
