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'Dobson Cellular Systems, Inc.', is a wireless telecommunications provider in several regions of the United States, including Alaska, Arizona, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin. Dobson Cellular Systems is a wholly owned subsidiary of 'Dobson Communications Corporation' based in Oklahoma City. It is the provider of Cellular One-branded services in the United States. As of February 14, 2007, Dobson had 1.7 million subscribers, making it the third largest GSM operator in the US and the ninth largest overall. Dobson operates under the brand name of Cellular One, and provides service on a TDMA and GSM network. The company purchased the rights to the Cellular One name from Alltel in December 2005. On June 29th 2007 AT&T announced that it will acquire Dobson Communications Corporation for approximately $2.8 billion in cash pending FCC approval.

Contents

Corporate history

Network

External links

Corporate history

Formed in the 1920's, Dobson Communications originally operated a small wireline telephone network in Oklahoma. In 70 years, Dobson has evolved to become the nation's largest independent rural wireless provider. Dobson's current operations in 60 markets were acquired through several purchases within the last 10 years.
On June 29, 2007 AT&T announced that they had reached an agreement to purchase Dobson Cellular division. The closing price is $2.8B USD or $13 per share, AT&T also agreed to assume the outstanding debt of $2.3B USD.

Network

Dobson is, for the most part, a rural provider. It claims to be the largest provider of cellular services in Alaska as well as in Michigan. It is also the exclusive provider of GSM technology in many of its markets and has a few resllers such as TracPhone and smaller MVNOs in particular states. It also provides voice and data roaming capability for many AT&T and T-Mobile customers. Dobson has recently upgraded a majority of its GSM/GPRS towers with an EDGE overlay, providing an even faster data rate for their customers.

External links

★ Dobson Cellular One homepage

★ Dobson Communications Corporation corporate homepage