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ORGANIZATION AND BUSINESS OPERATIONS | 12 Months Ended
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Dec. 31, 2011
ORGANIZATION AND BUSINESS OPERATIONS |
ORGANIZATION AND BUSINESS OPERATIONS |
1. ORGANIZATION AND BUSINESS OPERATIONS The Company provides wireless and wireline telecommunications services in North America, Bermuda and the Caribbean. Through its operating subsidiaries, the Company offers the following principal services: • Wireless. In the United States, the Company offers wireless voice and data services to retail customers under the "Alltel" name in rural markets located principally in the Southeast and Midwest. Additionally, the Company offers wholesale wireless voice and data roaming services to national, regional and local wireless carriers and selected international wireless carriers in rural markets located principally in the Southwest and Midwest United States. The Company also offers wireless voice and data services to retail customers in Bermuda under the "CellOne" name, in Guyana under the "Cellink" name, and in other smaller markets in the Caribbean and the United States. • Wireline. The Company's local telephone and data services include its operations in Guyana and the mainland United States. The Company is the exclusive licensed provider of domestic wireline local and long distance telephone services in Guyana and international voice and data communications into and out of Guyana. The Company also offers facilities-based integrated voice and data communications services to enterprise and residential customers in New England, primarily in Vermont, and wholesale transport services in New York State. In the second quarter of 2010, the Company completed the acquisition of its U.S. retail wireless business, which provides wireless voice and data services in rural markets of the United States under the "Alltel" brand name (the "Alltel Acquisition") and, in the third quarter of 2011, completed the migration of the Alltel assets to the Company's own information technology systems, telecommunications networks and platforms. Since 2005, revenue from U.S. operations has significantly grown as a percentage of consolidated revenue and as a result of the Alltel Acquisition, a substantial majority of the Company's consolidated revenue is now generated in the United States, mainly through mobile wireless operations. For more information about the Alltel Acquisition, see Note 3. In the second quarter of 2011, the Company continued its expansion by completing the merger of its Bermuda operations with M3 Wireless, Ltd., a leading retail wireless provider in Bermuda. For more information on the merger in Bermuda, see Note 3. The Company actively evaluates additional investment and acquisition opportunities in the United States and the Caribbean that meet the Company's return-on-investment and other acquisition criteria. The following chart summarizes the operating activities of the Company's principal subsidiaries, the segments in which the Company reports its revenue and the markets it served as of December 31, 2011:
Services |  | Segment |  | Markets |  | Tradenames
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Wireless |  | U.S. Wireless |  | United States (rural markets) |  | Alltel, Choice
|  | Island Wireless |  | Aruba, Bermuda, Turks and Caicos, U.S. Virgin Islands |  | Mio, CellOne, Islandcom, Choice
|  | International Integrated Telephony |  | Guyana |  | Cellink
Wireline |  | International Integrated Telephony |  | Guyana |  | GT&T, Emagine
|  | U.S. Wireline |  | United States (New England and New York State) |  | Sovernet, ION
The Company provides management, technical, financial, regulatory, and marketing services to its subsidiaries and typically receives a management fee equal to a percentage of their respective revenue. Management fees from consolidated subsidiaries are eliminated in consolidation. For information about the Company's business segments and geographical information about its revenue, operating income and long-lived assets, see Note 14.

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- Definition The entire disclosure for the nature of an entity's business, the major products or services it sells or provides and its principal markets, including the locations of those markets. If the entity operates in more than one business, the disclosure also indicates the relative importance of its operations in each business and the basis for the determination (for example, assets, revenues, or earnings). + References Reference 1: http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/presentationRef -Name Statement of Position (SOP) -Publisher AICPA -Number 94-6 -Paragraph 10 -LegacyDoc This reference is SUPERSEDED by the Accounting Standards Codification effective for interim and annual periods ending after September 15, 2009. This reference is included to help users transition from the previous accounting hierarchy and will be removed from future versions of this taxonomy. Reference 2: http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/presentationRef -Publisher FASB -Name Accounting Standards Codification -Topic 275 -SubTopic 10 -Section 50 -Paragraph 2 -URI http://asc.fasb.org/extlink&oid=6927468&loc=d3e6003-108592 + Details
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