Alltel
Started in 1943, Allied Telephone Co., was a small installation company specializing in telephone poles and cabling across Arkansas. In 1983, the company merged with Mid-Continent Telephone to form the modern day ALLTEL, now headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas. By 1996, it began offering long-distance and the next year the company's wireline and wireless units were merged into a single operation.
In 2005 it spun-off its wireline service and is now a wireless-only company. Through various mergers and partnerships, it now offers roaming in all 50 states. In 2000, Alltel finalized a wireless property exchange with Bell Atlantic and GTE, setting up a roaming agreement to establish the US's largest standardized digital wireless network covering 95 percent of the United States. With its own network, Alltel's wireless coverage makes up the largest network by square miles covered in the United States.
The company aims to provide service to small and medium-sized cities, but also has low-cost roaming agreements with major national CDMA carriers including Verizon Wireless and Sprint-Nextel. This allows Alltel subscribers access to nationwide support while providing wireless carriers coverage in rural spots.
When Alltel purchased Western Wireless in 2005, it took hold of a large GSM area as well. It does not offer GSM service to its own subscribers but Alltel has said that it will continue to maintain the GSM footprint and perhaps even enlarge it to provide roaming to GSM users of other mobile carriers.
Alltel has been spending a lot of money switching its user base to digital technology. This lets users have access to longer battery life and quicker download times when using Internet or BREW-based applications. In 2005, only 15% of its users still had analog technology phones.
Comparable to Verizon Wireless's "Chaperone, Alltel has launched a new service called Axcess FAMILY FINDER where customers on family plans can download software, such as mobile games, to their children's' phones. Using GPS technology you can acquire real-time location information either directly on their phone or on the computer.
In early 2007, Alltel released the news that it would be the first U.S. carrier to provide AskMeNow across all its mobile phones. The partnership allows customers, including those with smart phones, instant access to the AskMeNow question-answer capability.
Alltel Wi-Fi, introduced in late 2007, provides laptop service to Wi-Fi hotspots in North and South America. Wi-Fi is available at many places such as Barnes and Noble, many major airports, and thousands of hotels and cafes. Alltel Wi-Fi is available for purchase by anyone regardless of whether they reside in a traditional Alltel territory.
You can purchase mobile games from the Alltel Axcess Shop, and it does not use any air time. But if you want to play multi-player games and connect to the Internet, then air time is used from your package.
