PrimeCo
Encyclopedia
AirTouch
AirTouch Communications was a U.S.-based wireless telephone service provider, created as a spin-off on Pacific Telesis on April 1, 1994. Its headquarters were in One California in the Financial District, San Francisco, California...
, and was the first wireless telecommunications provider to turn up CDMA service on the PCS
Personal Communications Service
At the most basic level Personal Communications Service or PCS describes a set of wireless communications capabilities that allows some combination of terminal mobility, personal mobility, and service profile management...
(1900-MHz) band in late 1995. When the company was founded, it had its headquarters in Westlake
Westlake, Texas
Westlake is a town in Denton and Tarrant Counties in the U.S. state of Texas. The population is 702 as of the 2010 United States Census.The area known as Westlake was originally settled in 1847 by Charles and Matilda Medlin with about 20 other families. In the mid-twentieth century, now-Westlake...
, Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
. At a later point its headquarters were in Itasca, Illinois
Itasca, Illinois
Itasca is a village in DuPage County, Illinois, United States. The population was 8,302 at the 2000 census.In 2009, BusinessWeek rated Itasca as the 'Best Affordable Suburb' in the state of Illinois...
.
Hailed as the largest wireless phone service launch in U.S. history, the company successfully launched in 19 major U.S. cities. The company's original cell site
Cell site
A cell site is a term used to describe a site where antennas and electronic communications equipment are placed, usually on a radio mast, tower or other high place, to create a cell in a cellular network...
equipment suppliers were Motorola
Motorola
Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009...
and Lucent Technologies, and the original telephone supplier was Qualcomm
Qualcomm
Qualcomm is an American global telecommunication corporation that designs, manufactures and markets digital wireless telecommunications products and services based on its code division multiple access technology and other technologies. Headquartered in San Diego, CA, USA...
. The company served parts of the Midwestern and Southern United States. The two primary service areas included Wisconsin, northern and central Illinois, and northern Indiana; and parts of Virginia and North Carolina, as well as the Gulf Coast from Key West, Florida to Houston, Texas. PrimeCo had the license to operate in Hawaii.
PrimeCo won many marketing awards for innovative advertising campaigns. The first "tease" campaign had scenes like a pizza delivery man "beaming" onto a beach a few seconds after the order is placed. The viewer is left to wonder what the product or service is. The tag line was "Someday, everything will work this well." Overall, the tease campaign featured looks into the future, where technology could create a utopian existence, in part brought on by the advent of inexpensive and easy to use wireless PCS phone service.
The original corporate logo contained a red rounded edge box with an antenna projecting out of the top right corner.
The second campaign, which ran after the company started service, featured a cute (computer animated), bright-pink, little alien named Primetheus, who comes to Earth from planet Primeco, loses his "communicator" (which the Earthlings find and replicate), and then gets into all kinds of comical situations looking for it. The company set a new record for the number of subscribers signing up for service the first year. These campaigns were created by Dallas-based The Richards Group, and conceived by Creative Director Brian Nadurak, now of Click Here.
AirTouch received takeover bids from Bell Atlantic, MCI
MCI Inc.
MCI, Inc. is an American telecommunications subsidiary of Verizon Communications that is headquartered in Ashburn, Virginia...
, and finally Vodafone
Vodafone
Vodafone Group Plc is a global telecommunications company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the world's largest mobile telecommunications company measured by revenues and the world's second-largest measured by subscribers , with around 341 million proportionate subscribers as of...
, which was the winner and merged with AirTouch in January 1999. Later the same year, Bell Atlantic approached Vodafone Airtouch about merging all three wireless operations (Bell Atlantic Mobile, AirTouch Cellular, and PrimeCo Communications) into a joint venture to be called Verizon Wireless
Verizon Wireless
Cellco Partnership, doing business as Verizon Wireless, is one of the largest mobile network operators in the United States. The network has 107.7 million subscribers as of 2011, making it the largest wireless service provider in America....
http://www.sptimes.com/News/040500/Business/PrimeCo_customers_hea.shtml. Due to FCC regulations regarding duplication of frequencies, the PrimeCo territories were split up with: most of the Gulf Coast going into Verizon Wireless, except in Houston, where Verizon Wireless retained 10 MHz of spectrum and the remaining 20 MHz were sold to AT&T Wireless; Virginia and North Carolina territories sold to CFW Communications, a regional landline telecom provider since 1987, now operating under the name of nTelos
NTelos
nTelos is a wireless telecommunications company based in Waynesboro, Virginia, United States. nTelos is a provider of PCS services to customers.- Wireless services :...
; and the Midwest territories split up, with Wisconsin going into Verizon Wireless, and the Illinois and Indiana territories - like Houston - were disaggregated, with Verizon Wireless retaining 10 MHz of spectrum, and the remaining 20 MHz placed into a trust fund. The Illinois-Indiana PrimeCo territories were purchased by Clarity Partners, a Los Angeles-based private equity firm in 2001, who successfully improved the company's operations and later sold it to U.S. Cellular
U.S. Cellular
United States Cellular Corporation, d.b.a. U.S. Cellular , owns and operates the sixth largest wireless telecommunications network in the United States, behind Verizon Wireless, AT&T Mobility, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile USA, and Metro PCS. , they serve about 6.1 million customers in 126 markets in...
. PrimeCo's operations in Hawaii were sold to Sprint PCS in 1999.
Headquarters
When the company was founded, PrimeCo was headquartered in the Solana Office Complex in Westlake, TexasWestlake, Texas
Westlake is a town in Denton and Tarrant Counties in the U.S. state of Texas. The population is 702 as of the 2010 United States Census.The area known as Westlake was originally settled in 1847 by Charles and Matilda Medlin with about 20 other families. In the mid-twentieth century, now-Westlake...
, a suburb of Dallas. The headquarters site was selected in 1995. In 1999 the parties splitting PrimeCo agreed that the former headquarters would become the headquarters of the PrimeCo operations taken over by Vodafone AirTouch. The later version of PrimeCo was headquartered in Itasca, Illinois
Itasca, Illinois
Itasca is a village in DuPage County, Illinois, United States. The population was 8,302 at the 2000 census.In 2009, BusinessWeek rated Itasca as the 'Best Affordable Suburb' in the state of Illinois...
.
External links
- Primeco (Archive)