ATN International, Inc. (‘ATN’) provides digital infrastructure and communications services in the United States, primarily in the western US, the Navajo Nation and Alaska, and internationally, including Bermuda and the Caribbean region.
The company focuses on smaller markets, many of which are rural or remote, that have a growing demand for connectivity services. Through the company’s operating subsidiaries, it primarily provides: fixed and mobile telecommunications connectivity to residential...
ATN International, Inc. (‘ATN’) provides digital infrastructure and communications services in the United States, primarily in the western US, the Navajo Nation and Alaska, and internationally, including Bermuda and the Caribbean region.
The company focuses on smaller markets, many of which are rural or remote, that have a growing demand for connectivity services. Through the company’s operating subsidiaries, it primarily provides: fixed and mobile telecommunications connectivity to residential, business, and government customers, including a range of high-speed internet and data services, fixed and mobile wireless solutions, and video and voice services; and carrier communications services, such as communications tower facilities to large business and government customers, and terrestrial and submarine fiber optic transport.
The company is a leading provider of digital infrastructure and communications services, with a focus on rural and remote markets in the United States, and internationally, including Bermuda and the Caribbean region.
The company has developed significant operational expertise and resources that it uses to augment its capabilities in its local markets. With this support, the company’s operating subsidiaries can improve their quality of service with greater economies of scale and expertise than would typically be available in the size markets it operates in. The company provides management, technical, financial, regulatory, and marketing services to its operating subsidiaries and typically receives a management fee calculated as a percentage of their revenues, which is eliminated in consolidation. The company also actively evaluates investment opportunities and other strategic transactions, both domestic and international, and generally looks for those that fit its profile of telecommunications businesses while keeping a focus on generating excess operating cash flows over extended periods of time.
Strategy
The company seeks to execute its strategy by providing its customers with critical communication technologies that enable rural and remote communities to access reliable, high-speed broadband access through fiber or fiber-like services. These services are essential for allowing these communities to access things, such as healthcare, education, and economic opportunities.
The company’s strategies are focused on building and owning advanced digital infrastructure to adapt and meet its customers’ evolving connectivity needs; pursuing a ‘first-to-fiber’ strategy targeting underbuilt or historically underserved markets to ‘close the digital divide’ in its rural or remote markets; enhancing its customer relationships through strong local management; and considering new investments, acquisitions, and dispositions on a disciplined, return-on-investment basis.
Services
As of December 31, 2024, the company offered the following types of services to its customers:
Fixed Telecommunications Services: The company provides fixed data and voice telecommunications services to business and consumer customers. These services include high-speed consumer broadband and high-speed data solutions for businesses. For some markets, fixed services also include video services and revenue derived from support under certain government programs.
Carrier Telecommunication Services: The company delivers services to other telecommunications providers, including the leasing of critical network infrastructure, such as tower and transport facilities, wholesale roaming, and long-distance voice services, site maintenance, and international long-distance services.
Mobile Telecommunications Services: The company offers mobile communications services over its wireless networks and related equipment (such as handsets) to both business and consumer customers.
Managed Services: The company provides information technology services, such as network, application, infrastructure, and hosting services to both its business and consumer customers, to complement its fixed telecommunications services in its existing markets.
Segments
Through December 31, 2024, the company identified two operating segments to manage and review its operations, as well as to support investor presentations of its results. These operating segments are as follows:
US Telecom: In the United States, the company offers fixed, carrier, and managed services to customers in Alaska and the western United States. In 2024, the company ceased providing mobility services to retail customers in the western United States.
International Telecom: In the company’s international markets, it offers fixed, carrier, mobility, and managed services to customers in Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Guyana, and the US Virgin Islands.
US Telecom Segment
The company’s US Telecom segment generates fixed, carrier, mobility, and managed services revenues in Alaska and parts of the western United States.
In November 2022, the company acquired the issued and outstanding stock of Sacred Wind Enterprises, Inc. (‘Sacred Wind’), a rural telecommunications provider in New Mexico (the ‘Sacred Wind Transaction’). As part of the Sacred Wind Transaction, the company paid a combination of cash and equity for Sacred Wind, resulting in the Sacred Wind stockholders becoming minority owners in the new business formed by combining Sacred Wind with the company’s existing operations in the western United States, Commnet. Beginning on November 7, 2022, the results of the Sacred Wind Transaction are included in its US Telecom segment.
Carrier Services
In Alaska, the company provides wholesale voice and internet connectivity to carrier customers. In the western United States, it provides wholesale mobile voice and data roaming services in rural markets and wholesale transport services to national, regional, local, and select international wireless carriers as part of its carrier services, as well as tower rental, backhaul, and maintenance services. The company’s largest wholesale networks are located principally in the western United States.
In Alaska, the company provides connectivity to its wholesale customers, either through direct sales of wholesale transport over its terrestrial or subsea networks or by entering into transactions whereby it agrees to build, host, or maintain networks on behalf of another carrier over a contracted term.
In the western United States, the company provides network infrastructure services as part of its expanded carrier services, such as tower leasing and transport facilities to its carrier partners, to supplement its historic revenue base. By the end of 2024, the company substantially completed the build of AT&T’s network for the First Responder Network Authority (‘FirstNet’). Ongoing, it is providing equipment and site maintenance and high-capacity transport from these FirstNet cell sites to AT&T’s core network for an initial term ending in 2031. In March of 2025, the company amended the FirstNet agreement to extend the deadline for completing the build requirements. In 2023, it signed its second major Carrier Managed Services (‘CMS’) agreement with Verizon to build out a large network to support their customer base. The company expects the Verizon build to be substantially complete by the end of 2025.
The company also has roaming agreements with each of the three US national wireless network carriers (AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless), along with several other wireless service providers. Other than these agreements with the national carriers, the company’s standard roaming agreements are usually terminable within 90 days. While the company continues to provide services pursuant to these roaming agreements, its business focus has shifted away from traditional roaming and toward a network infrastructure model of carrier services.
Sales and Marketing: The company’s wholesale transport customers are predominately communications carriers, such as local exchange carriers, wireless carriers, internet service providers, and interstate integrated providers. The company’s services are mainly sold through direct and inside sales. Its business customers select from a wide range of service offerings tailored to meet their needs.
The company is investing in the expansion of its regional fiber and network asset footprint, and in enhanced network reliability and route diversity, in the expectation that its carrier customers will have greater demand for higher capacity, higher reliability, and lower latency backhaul to support their own investments in network deployments.
Fixed Services
In Alaska, the company provides fiber broadband and managed IT services, offering technology and service-enabled customer solutions to business and wholesale customers in and out of Alaska. It also provides telecommunication services to consumers in the most populated communities throughout the state. The company’s facilities-based communications network connects to the contiguous states via its two diverse undersea fiber optic cable systems. The company provides high-capacity data networking, internet connectivity, voice communications, and IT services. Networking services include Ethernet and IP routed services, as well as switched and dedicated voice services. In addition, the company offers other value-added services, such as network hosting, managed IT services, and long-distance services. Its network is among the most expansive in Alaska and forms the foundation of service to its customers. The company operates in a largely two-player terrestrial wireline market, and its customers are primarily business customers.
In the western United States, the company provides fiber and fixed wireless services to business customers, such as schools, libraries, mine operators, and state and local governments, as well as residential customers. The company’s focus in the western United States is to continue to build out its residential and commercial broadband services.
Network: The company provides communications and IT solutions that connect Alaskans, as well as customers in the continental United States, to the world. This is based on an extensive facilities-based wireline telecommunications network in Alaska that it operates. The company continually upgrades its network to provide higher levels of performance, higher bandwidth speeds, increased levels of security, and additional value-added services for its customers. It operates significant terrestrial and submarine fiber miles, which serve as the backbone of its network, with a focus on reaching government and large business customers. The company’s network is extensive within Alaska’s urban areas and connects its largest markets, including Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Juneau, with each other and the contiguous states, as well as many rural areas. Residential broadband customers are served in Alaska with a mix of fiber-driven broadband and copper-based DSL internet access.
The company owns and operates two undersea fiber optic cable systems, AKORN and Northstar, that provide diverse routing from its Alaskan network to its facilities in Oregon and Washington, designed to serve the critical communications requirements of its internal companies and the requirements of its external customers. Through the company’s landing stations in the Pacific Northwest, it also provides an at-the-ready landing point for other large fiber optic cables, and their operators, connecting the US to networks in Asia and other parts of the world.
The company’s terrestrial fiber network on the North Slope of Alaska allows it to provide broadband solutions to the oil and gas sector and to advance its sales of managed IT services. Rural healthcare, education, and business customers are served by a satellite earth station network utilizing a combination of Geosynchronous Equatorial Orbit (‘GEO’) and low earth orbit (‘LEO’) satellite capacity. These satellite services provide internet and WAN backhaul connectivity to its customers.
In the western United States, the company has deployed, and is working to deploy more, carrier-grade fiber optic networks strategically throughout its markets to continue to serve government, education, healthcare, business, consumer, and tribal customers in Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah. The company is continuing to expand its capacity offerings with a focus on enhancing its owned and leased transport facilities. The expansion of its network, anchored by new fiber deployments, is facilitating a long-held vision for reducing reliance on limited capacity microwave backhaul and enabling new wholesale agreements with additional national and regional carriers for both lit and dark fiber services.
Competition: For traditional voice and broadband services, the company competes with GCI and AT&T on a statewide basis, and smaller providers, such as Matanuska Telephone Association, Inc., a co-op owned telephone and internet service provider operating in the Matanuska Valley region of Alaska, on a more local basis.
In the western United States, the company experiences competitive pressures from ILEC providers, such as AT&T, Comcast, Windstream, Lumen, and Frontier, along with their channel partners and other smaller regional providers and cooperatives.
The company’s fixed services in the United States also face additional competitive pressure from the continued development and commercialization of LEO satellite technologies with the capacity for providing high-quality data services to its customers.
Mobility Services
Historically, the company offered mobile services to retail customers in certain rural markets already covered by its wholesale networks in the western United States. During 2024, the company transitioned its focus to carrier services, and at the end of the year, it ceased providing retail mobile services under its own brand to retail customers.
Replace and Remove Program: In July 2022, the company was approved to participate in the Federal Communication Commission’s Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program (the ‘Replace and Remove Program’), designed to reimburse providers of advanced communications services for reasonable costs incurred in the required removal, replacement, and disposal of communications equipment and services in their networks that have been deemed to pose a national security risk. Pursuant to the Replace and Remove Program, the company’s eligible subsidiaries in the western United States and in the US Virgin Islands were initially allocated under the Replace and Remove Program; however, in December 2024, this program was fully funded for an increased allocation to the company.
Network and Operations: The company provides wireless communications network products and services with owned and leased cellular, PCS, BRS, EBS, AWS, and Citizens Broadband Radio Services (‘CBRS’) spectrum. Its networks consist of base stations and radio transceivers located on owned or leased towers and buildings, telecommunications switches, and owned or leased transport facilities. The company designs and constructs its network in a manner intended to provide high-quality service to substantially all types of compatible wireless devices.
The company operates high-capacity, carrier-class digital wireless switching systems that are capable of serving multiple markets through a mobile telephone switching office and centralized equipment used for network and data management that is located in high-availability facilities supported by multiple levels of power and network redundancy. The company’s systems are designed to incorporate Internet Protocol (IP) packet-based Ethernet technology, which allows for increased data capacity and a more efficient network. Interconnection between the mobile telephone switching office and the cell sites utilizes Ethernet technology over fiber or microwave links for virtually all of its sites.
International Telecom Segment
The company’s International Telecom segment generates fixed, carrier, mobility, and managed services revenues in Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Guyana, and the US Virgin Islands.
During 2024, the company took significant steps to integrate and align management across its international markets, thereby driving efficiencies and advancing the shared mission of these markets. As part of these efforts, the company consolidated its international management team and developed new shared branding across the segment. The company launched its new brand, Brava, in its four international markets and in the Caribbean region generally. Brava is focused on the delivery of high-quality business, managed, and connectivity solutions to government and large business customers. The company also introduced unified branding across two of its networks; it now sells fixed and mobility services under the ‘One Communications’ brand in both Bermuda and Guyana.
Fixed Services
High-Speed Data Services and Networks: The company offers high-speed broadband and data connectivity services to residential and business customers in all its International Telecom markets. It provides a number of broadband internet plans with varying speeds to address different customer needs and price requirements in its various markets. As of December 31, 2024, the company had approximately 203,200 broadband customers across its international markets, and approximately 69% of those customers had access to high-speed networks.
The company’s high-speed data services are delivered over fiber to the premises using fiber-optic and hybrid fiber coaxial cable (‘HFC’) networks throughout its international markets. The company makes efforts to construct its high-speed networks with durable materials and route redundancies that are designed to withstand the climate of the regions, including challenges, such as high winds. In Guyana, the company is working to migrate customers in Guyana from the legacy copper network and its DSL broadband internet service to either fiber or fixed wireless networks.
Voice Services and Digital Switching: The company offers fixed voice services that include local exchange, regional and long-distance calling, and voice messaging services to residential, government, and business customers in Bermuda, Guyana, the Cayman Islands, and the US Virgin Islands. With respect to the company’s international long-distance business, it also collects payments from foreign carriers for handling international long-distance calls originating from the foreign carriers’ countries and terminating on the company’s network. The company also makes payments to foreign carriers for international calls originating on one of its networks and terminating in the foreign carrier’s countries and collects from its subscribers or a local originating carrier a rate that is market-based or set by regulatory tariff. All fixed access lines in its network are digitally switched from its switching centers in the US Virgin Islands, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, and Guyana. The company’s switching centers in these markets enable dedicated monitoring of its network, designed to ensure quality and reliable service to its customers.
Video Services: The company offers video services in Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, and the US Virgin Islands. It has several offerings available to its video customers, including basic and tiered local and cable TV channels grouped into various content categories, such as news, sports, and entertainment.
Sub-Sea Fiber Networks: The company’s international voice and data networks link with the rest of the world through undersea fiber-optic cables in the Caribbean and Atlantic regions. These cables are crucial arteries that supply access to communications services for islands and remote markets like the ones in which the company operates. The company’s sub-sea fiber connectivity utilizes physically diverse routes, designed to supply resilient services to its customers. The company’s sub-sea fiber network consists of both owned assets (through memberships of certain consortia) and assets leased from third parties.
Sales and Marketing: The company’s fixed services are sold through five main distribution channels: digital, company-owned and operated retail/pop-up retail, authorized dealers and agents, direct sales, and inside sales. Business and residential customers are able to purchase any of its standalone or bundled data, managed services, security services, and voice services through any of its above channels. The company is seeking to grow and protect its existing business customer base with its Brava service offerings, which are provided through a simplified bundling approach that enhances its value proposition and brand position in its markets. The company has invested in a number of Brava sales support and delivery resources to support subscriber growth and enhance delivery quality.
Competition: The company competes with a limited number of other providers, including Digicel, Liberty Latin America, and individual newer entrants in select markets, with respect to various services.
Mobility
The company provides mobile, data, and voice services to retail and business customers in Bermuda, Guyana, and in the US Virgin Islands. It also provides roaming services for many of the largest US providers’ and other international operators’ customers visiting these locations. As of December 31, 2024, the company had approximately 389,000 mobile subscribers in its International Telecom segment.
Products and Services: A significant majority of the company’s international customers use prepay plans, which require them to pay in advance for its mobile services. These plans allow customers to purchase a specific amount of voice minutes, text messages, or data for a specified period of time before usage. A smaller minority of customers subscribe to its postpaid plans that allow customers to select a plan with voice minutes, text messaging, a given amount of data, and other features that recur on a monthly basis and are billed at the end of the service period.
Network and Operations: The company offers its mobility services over 4G (LTE) in all of its markets (other than in the Cayman Islands), with emerging 5G in Bermuda and the US Virgin Islands. The company owns and operates base stations on owned and leased sites throughout its international markets. Except for VoLTE, which has components in each market and leverages shared components in Miami and Denver, all of its mobile networks have their core supporting facilities in the home network in the US Virgin Islands, Bermuda, and Guyana. The company’s local Network Operations Centers (‘NOCs’) provide dedicated monitoring of its networks and are designed to ensure that it has continuous monitoring of all its wireless and wireline facilities.
As part of the company’s three-year capital investment strategy, it has made upgrades designed to enhance the resiliency of its network. The company has standardized business continuity and disaster recovery plans and engaged in regular reviews and testing of those plans throughout the markets.
Sales and Marketing: The company provides mobile services, mobile connectivity devices, and account management through five main distribution channels: digital, company-owned retail/pop-up retail, authorized dealers/agents, direct sales, and inside sales. Business and residential customers are able to purchase any of the company’s services, prepaid mobile, postpaid mobile, and mobile data, through any of the above channels. Customers are also able to purchase devices and accessories to enhance their services through these same channels. The company offers a full suite of mobile devices and add-on accessories, similar to what is typically available in most other countries. The company’s sales channels are strategically located throughout its service areas, staffed by trained, branded, and supported sales and service representatives.
Handsets and Accessories: The company offers a diverse line of wireless devices and accessories designed to meet both the personal and professional needs of its customers. These devices support a variety of wireless connectivity technologies that are deployed across its various markets. The company’s device assortment includes a wide range of smartphones, including those featuring the Android and iOS operating systems, in addition to a full line of feature phones, wireless hotspots, and various wireless solutions for small businesses. To complement the company’s phone offerings, it sells a complete range of original equipment manufacturer and after-market accessories that allow its customers to personalize their wireless experience, including phone protection, battery charging solutions, and Bluetooth hands-free kits.
Competition: The company competes against Digicel and Liberty Latin America in the Caribbean region, other smaller local providers, and in the US Virgin Islands, against one or more US national operators or mobile virtual network operators.
US Federal Regulation
At the federal level in the United States, the company is regulated in large part by the FCC. The company’s operations in the United States are subject to the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, including the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (‘Communications Act’), and the FCC’s implementing regulations.
The FCC provides regulations that impose certain disclosures, operational measures, and regulatory payment obligations applicable to both the company’s fixed and wireless services.
The company is required to provide law enforcement agencies with capacity and technical capabilities to support lawful wiretaps pursuant to the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act.
The company provides its wireless services pursuant to various commercial mobile radio services (‘CMRS’) licenses issued by the FCC. In addition to CMRS licenses, the company’s wireless business relies on common carrier and non-common carrier fixed point-to-point microwave licenses issued by the FCC.
The radio systems towers that the company owns and leases are subject to Federal Aviation Administration and FCC regulations that govern the location, marking, lighting, and construction of towers and are subject to the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act, National Historic Preservation Act, and other environmental statutes enforced by the FCC.
The company has provided telecommunications services, broadband internet access services, and internal connections supported by the FCC’s Schools and Libraries Universal Service Support Mechanism (‘E-rate’) for many years.
The company’s wireline operations in the US Virgin Islands are subject to the US Virgin Islands Public Utilities Code, pursuant to which the Virgin Islands Public Service Commission (‘PSC’) regulates certain telecommunications and cable TV services that Viya provides in the US Virgin Islands. The company’s video, internet, and wireless companies in the US Virgin Islands also receive tax benefits as qualifying participants in the US Virgin Islands’ Research & Technology Park (‘RTPark’) program.
The company’s subsidiary, One Communications (Guyana) Inc., in which it holds an 80% interest, is subject to regulation in Guyana under the provisions of a telecommunications license from the Government of Guyana, the Guyana Public Utilities Commission Act of 2016, as amended, and the Guyana Telecommunications Act of 2016, including its various regulations.
The Regulatory Authority of Bermuda (the ‘RA’) is the primary regulator of the company’s operations in Bermuda.
History
The company was founded in 1987. It was incorporated in Delaware in 1989. The company was formerly known as Atlantic Tele-Network, Inc. and changed its name to ATN International, Inc. in 2016.
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