AlaskaComm Delays LTE Launch to Year-End; Verizon Now Breathing Down its Neck
AlaskaComm Delays LTE Launch to Year-End; Verizon Now Breathing Down its Neck
AlaskaComm has postponed the launch of its Long Term Evolution (LTE) network from May to the end of this year. The delay corresponds with reports saying that the carrier has started selling Apple’s iPhone from April which can only connect to a 3G network at present. Earlier in Jun 2011 AlaskaComm had said that it would be spending around $20 million in deploying LTE in the state making it the first carrier in Alaska to offer 4G services. Verizon, the largest Internet service provider in the US had meanwhile applied to acquiring 700MHz C Block spectrum license from Triad covering Alaska in August 2011 with the FCC. Triad had purchased this spectrum in an FCC sponsored spectrum auction in August 2010 for $1.8 million. At that time Verizon didn’t have any agenda for FTE deployment in Alaska and it did not want to dispute AlsakaComm’s claims of being the first LTE provider in the state.
With AlalskaComm’s LTE launch now delayed the situation has changed and in Mar 2012, Alaska’s Matanuska Telephone Association (MTA) announced that it has entered into an agreement with Verizon Wireless to participate in Verizon’s ‘LTE in Rural America’ program. As part of the agreement, Verizon will lease 700MHz upper C block wireless spectrum to MTA in Denali and Matanuska – Sustina Boroughs covering almost 34,000 square miles. With MTA’s participation in this scheme, its customers can access LTE in more than 230 cities in the US.
The story might still have a twist in the tale as last week Verizon revealed that it is in a process to start its own independent operations in Alaska and has started laying groundwork for it by leasing acreage for cell towers covering the south central and interior regions. Irrespective of its alliance with MTA, Verizon has indicated that it would like to enter the Alaskan market in 2013.








