Love in Cincinnati

For Valentine's Day we thought we would share one of the wireless carriers that we really Love. Cincinnati Bell Wireless is doing almost all the right things to make them one of the top carriers in their corner of the world. From the southwest corner of Ohio (plus parts of Kentucky and Indiana) they're offering competitive plans, great prices on phones and innovative services.

At just over 500,000 wireless customers, Cincinnati Bell is just below the Top 10 of cellular carriers but they could move into Big 10 if any further consolidation occurred among the top carriers, or Alltel suffers some serious customer erosion. Cincy Bell is tied to the local wireline operator which gives them some serious advantages including communications bundles and wireline/wireless calling circles.

There was a time when we thought Cincinnati Bell would be absorbed into AT&T, but AT&T built their own network there so C-Bell either benefits or suffers from that separation. AT&T remains as a primary roaming partner outside of southeast Ohio, but not the only one. Those of us living outside of Ohio can only look with envy at the availability of such a competent operator, especially those of us who live within the 17-state territory of the former Qwest Wireless, a now-defunct wireline/wireless carrier that couldn't make a go of it with over a million customers.

There are a handful of other small carriers we Love, but Cincinnati Bell is the largest of the smallest, especially when you consider they have over a half-million customers all in one tiny corner of one state. It will be a sad day if they disappear, unless they combine with another small operator. How many here remember the original Bell Telephone?