AT&T has signed an agreement with Grupo Salinas to acquire Mexican wireless company Iusacell for US$2.5 billion, inclusive of Iusacell debt. Under the terms of the agreement, AT&T will acquire all of Iusacell’s wireless properties, including licenses, network assets, retail stores and approximately 8.6 million subscribers. 

Iusacell offers wireless service under both the Iusacell and Unefón brand names with a network that today covers about 70 percent of Mexico’s approximately 120 million people. AT&T plans to expand Iusacell’s network to cover millions of additional consumers and businesses in Mexico. Iusacell operates a 3G wireless network based on the global GSM/UMTS technology that AT&T uses in the United States. Iusacell owns between 20 and 25 MHz of 800 MHz spectrum, primarily in the southern half of the country, including Mexico City and Guadalajara, and an average of 39MHz of PCS spectrum nationwide. 

According to AT&T, this transaction gives operator the assets necessary to create a North American Mobile Service area for U.S. customers calling or visiting Mexico, and Mexican customers calling or visiting the United States. 

The acquisition will occur after Grupo Salinas, the current owner of 50 percent of Iusacell, closes its announced purchase of the other 50 percent of Iusacell that Grupo Salinas does not own today. The transaction is subject to review by Mexico’s telecom regulator IFT (Instituto Federal de Telecomunicaciones) and Mexico’s National Foreign Investments Commission. AT&T expects the transaction to close in the first quarter of 2015.

Separate from its acquisition of Iusacell, AT&T has essentially completed the expansion of its 4G LTE network, which now covers more than 300 million people in the United States. It has completed the build-out of wired high-speed Internet service to 57 million U.S. customer locations. And the company has deployed fiber connections to 600,000 of its planned 1 million multi-tenant U.S. business locations.