Peoples Telephone Cooperative (a NetAmerica Alliance Member) has begun offering 4G LTE data service in rural Texas.
The company has replaced its fixed wireless WiMax offering with 4G LTE running on their 700MHz license. They are using the NetAmerica Alliance’s UniPort Home Gateway which offers both wired Ethernet and Wi-Fi within the home while connecting over broadband wireless to Peoples’ newly deployed 4G LTE network. Access to customer premise devices such as the UniPort came through the technology partnership with Ericsson which NetAmerica announced last spring. The initial turn-up of service moved over 200 residential users from WiMax to 4G LTE in eastern Texas.
http://www.peoplescom.nethttp://www.netAmericaAlliance.com
- NetAmerica Alliance, which is based in Dallas, is a group of independent carriers who have joined forces to build-out LTE service in the carriers’ license coverage areas.
- In January 2012, NetAlliance completed installation of its SuperCenter, which houses both the Alliance’s IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) as well as its 24/7 Network Operations Center (NOC). The SuperCenter is manned and run by NetAmerica personnel in support of Alliance Members who are deploying 4G LTE service in their respective license areas. Before the NetAmerica Alliance, independent carriers who owned wireless spectrum faced the quandary that while they needed an IMS architecture to evolve their network and a 24/7 operations center to monitor it, the capital investment, services development, and staffing costs were unaffordable for any but the largest carriers. NetAmerica Alliance made that investment, and through its business relationship with Alliance Members, shares the cost of that investment among them.