NetAmerica Alliance Adds Partners as SMART Forges Ahead

DALLAS, Sept. 8, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- NetAmerica Alliance, LLC today announced the addition of InfoVista and American Tower Corporation to their partner program for the Small Market Alliance for Rural Transformation (SMART)—the shared network alliance with Sprint to deliver 4G LTE mobile services to rural America.

"We are excited to build a best-of-breed partner program that provides our Members with the necessary infrastructure and operational toolsets to deliver high-quality and dependable 4G LTE service to rural markets. These types of partnerships are an integral part of the value that SMART brings to the table," stated Roger Hutton, NetAmerica chairman and CEO.  "By bringing InfoVista and American Tower into our partner program, we are able to present a powerful portfolio which includes our long-standing technology partner, Ericsson."

In March 2014, NetAmerica and Sprint announced SMART, an initiative to provide rural carriers with the spectrum, devices, national reach, and operational tools they need to successfully deliver a Tier-1, 4G LTE service experience to their customers. In exchange, the rural providers are building networks which are Sprint Network Vision-compliant and are sharing it with Sprint, to provide Sprint customers with extended reach into rural areas of the country.

The addition of American Tower to NetAmerica's partner program will offer Members a wide range of infrastructure solutions and help bring advanced wireless services to rural communities, leveraging American Tower's scale, experience and capabilities. Approximately ninety-five percent of American Tower's more than 28,000 U.S. towers are located in rural and suburban areas, and their turnkey services will accelerate cost-effective network deployment in these locations. American Tower's streamlined and standardized collocation process supported by ON AIR Access® will deliver an industry-leading online site selection, application and collocation management experience for NetAmerica Members.

"American Tower shares a common vision with NetAmerica Alliance: to bring wireless broadband to the rural marketplace. With our strong portfolio of communications sites throughout rural America and our demonstrated capability to serve competitive carriers, we are uniquely positioned to help these carriers upgrade their networks to LTE," said Phillip Rosenthall, senior vice president of sales & marketing, American Tower.

InfoVista will empower NetAmerica Members to deliver on the promise of 4G LTE mobility to their customers by balancing mobile network cost efficiencies and minimizing the diverse risks inherent in planning, deploying and optimizing next-generation mobile networks. NetAmerica will leverage InfoVista's radio frequency (RF) planning, network performance management, and mobile network optimization solutions to deploy a network design collaboration hub that enables Alliance engineering teams to effectively design, manage and optimize individual portions of the Alliance Network. InfoVista's network collaboration hub will also help coordinate shared information for the entire project with NetAmerica, Sprint and others. The interoperability provided by InfoVista's solutions enables all Alliance Members with immediate operational efficiencies. Additionally, this framework will lead to improved network performance and greater transparency into RF network data and coverage information.

"A critical requirement for the successful deployment of a multi-system LTE network is to ensure the LTE design practices, propagation models, geodata and network performance reporting processes are maintained collectively and can be leveraged independently," said Jason Suplita, senior director at InfoVista. "The collaboration hub powered by InfoVista will provide critical collaboration capabilities to empower rural operators to launch LTE services while strategically leveraging the NetAmerica Alliance program. With the ability to optimize existing mobile network elements and simultaneously plan for future roll-outs, both Sprint and Alliance Members are guaranteed high mobile network performance now and into the future as new technologies emerge."

About NetAmerica Alliance: 
NetAmerica Alliance is a democratic, peer-to-peer union of independent Communication Service Providers (CSP) joining forces to secure the future of rural America.  Through the programs, services, capabilities and investment in infrastructure with which the Alliance arms its Members and through the manner in which they work for their individual and collective success, NetAmerica helps to mitigate business and technology risk to yield successful and profitable deployment of 4G LTE service.  The Alliance believes in rural America and the virtues of independence, community, and family.  We also believe that irrespective of geography—every individual should have access to modern communication services that maintain those valuable connections.  For more information, visit: www.NetAmericaAlliance.com.

About American Tower:
American Tower is a leading independent owner, operator and developer of wireless and broadcast communications real estate with a global portfolio of approximately 69,000 communications sites. For more information about American Tower, please visit the "Earnings Materials" and "Company & Industry Resources" sections of our investor relations website at www.americantower.com. 
ON AIR Access is a registered trademark of ATC IP LLC.

About InfoVista: 
InfoVista is the leading provider of IP and RF planning, assurance and optimization software solutions and services that enable efficient network and IT transformations. Our award-winning solutions empower communications service providers and IT-intensive enterprises to deliver high-performing and differentiated services, while cost-effectively planning, operating, optimizing and monetizing their networks. InfoVista's combined expertise and technology innovations in radio and IP networks provide more than 550 customers worldwide with a new level of network intelligence, visibility and control across the entire network life cycle. Using InfoVista solutions, they deliver optimal quality of service, ensure a high-quality user experience, invest appropriately and consolidate their OSS/BSS ecosystems, while keeping total cost of ownership as low as possible. For more information, please visit www.infovista.com.

NetAmerica Media Contact:
Ginny Gardea
Director of Marketing
NetAmerica Alliance, LLC
[email protected]
503-314-1056

InfoVista Media Contact:
March Communications
Sarah Love / Stephanie Jackman
+1 617 960 9875
[email protected]

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SOURCE NetAmerica Alliance, LLC