Friday, March 20, 2015

The PTCI Network Upgrades

It's always great to see one of the smallest networks make a significant upgrade to their network.  Recently, PTCI wireless, in the Oklahoma Panhandle, decided not only to upgrade to 4G, they also took the bold step to switch the entire network to GSM.  They now claim a roaming relationship with AT&T that will serve their customers better than before, and we agree.

So far this year there have been few network shutdowns.  There are several carriers who are barely holding on so we expect this to be a temporary situation.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

At this point which carriers would you classify as "barely holding on"?

Oz Andrews said...

"barely holding on" is pretty simple. These carriers are either losing money or not making enough cash to make it worthwhile to maintain their wireless network. Examples of the latter include Cincinatti bell in Ohio and Plateau Wireless in New Mexico. Their wireless operation were making money, but it was far more worthwhile to sell their network to AT&T and use the proceeds to invest in more profitable products such as broadband and video.

The money-losers are the small, mostly wireless-only operations who have little to offer over the national competitors. Big Sky Mobile, Blue Wireless, Breakaway Wireless, Choice Wireless of Texas, DTC Wireless, Indigo, Mobilenation, Pace, Phoenix, SRT, and Snake River could be in that group. More likely, we're looking at someone the size of nTelos to sell out.