Verizon Signs Tenth Rural America Deal

Verizon Wireless is signing partners rapidly for its Rural America LTE partnership program, and they include previously non-mobile carriers. The tenth recruit is Convergence Technologies (CTI), a wireline and fixed wireless CLEC in rural Indiana and Illinois.

Focal Points:

 

• The smaller firm will lease Verizon's 700MHz spectrum and build a rural LTE network in parts of Indiana and Illinois, where Verizon will not build out itself. CTI will use part of its recent $18m broadband stimulus funding.
• It will also integrate the LTE network with its IP Pay payments platform to develop a mobile payments offering. "4G LTE technology will enable a variety of innovative value added services within the mobile ecosystem," said CTI’s CEO Charles Wu.
• Verizon's other LTE partners are Custer Telephone, Carolina West Wireless, S and R Communications, Bluegrass Cellular, Cellcom, Cross Wireless, Pioneer Cellular, Strata Networks and Thumb Cellular.

Editor’s Note: a few weeks Experton Group made note of the lengths some of the carriers are going to enhance coverage, i.e., using different technologies, etc. However, when all else fails, either acquire companies or as Verizon is doing it, create partnerships.

The benefit of partnerships is that they can be arranged faster and you still end up with a larger virtual footprint. The downside is that there are more vendors in the overall mix, so it becomes that harder to manage.