T-Mobile to acquire rest of iWireless

T-Mobile will soon own all of iWireless, the Iowa-based cellphone and wireless service provider.

Bellevue, Wash.-based T-Mobile announced this week that it will acquire the remaining ownership of iWireless from Aureon, a West Des Moines-based business support company. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but T-Mobile will acquire the 47 percent ownership stake Aureon currently has in iWireless.

The deal is expected to close late this year or early 2018.

T-Mobile and Aureon, then Iowa Network Services, co-founded iWireless in 1997. The company now has about 75,000 customers in Iowa, western Illinois and eastern Nebraska.

After the deal is complete, current iWireless customers will move to T-Mobile plans, a company spokesperson said in an email.

'We're taking T-Mobile to every corner of the country, and this deal shows our commitment to expanding in the heart of America,” T-Mobile CEO and President John Legere said in a statement.

IWireless operates a number of retail locations across Iowa, including three stores in Cedar Rapids, one in Marion, one in Coralville and one in Vinton.

RootMetrics, an independent company that measures mobile phone service, ranked T-Mobile fourth out of four large carriers for overall performance in Iowa. Verizon ranked at the top, followed by AT&T and Sprint.

l Comments: (319) 398-8366; matthew.patane@thegazette.com