Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Mohave Wireless Gives Up

Mohave Wireless in Northwest Arizona has been acquired by Verizon Wireless.  Our only real surprise is that this transaction took so long.  This is a relatively large hole in Verizon's cellular coverage with a very busy I-40 corridor and a popular resort area, Lake Havasu City.  Verizon has owned a small part of Mohave for many years so there has always been a favorable roaming agreement between the two.

Mohave has a very good wireless network in the area and their customers may not notice any improvements.  Since they already have good roaming abilities and a wide selection of handsets, we predict services will slowly become more expensive for Mohave customers who may also lose bundle discounts with their Frontier wireline service.  The good news is that we expect the network will soon be converted to all 3G, with 4G coming as well.

There are 2 groups who will gain significantly with this transaction: Verizon's own prepaid users and those MVNO customers who either have no service in the area or pay roaming charges.  The largest of these services include Page Plus and Straight Talk CDMA users.

OK, now here is our 'boo-hoo, there goes another carrier' routine.  It's sad to see another carrier disappear, but in Mohave's case, we now have the ability to switch from our old Verizon postpaid phone to Page Plus, or even better, switch from a Straight Talk GSM phone to one of their CDMA phones.  In this case it's nice to be outside looking in.

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