Wireless network consolidation continues. NTelos, a player in the Virginias has sold some of their spectrum to T-Mobile and the rest of their network and customers to Shenandoah Telecom. Shenandoah, a.k.a. Shentel is an affiliate of Sprint which means if you live in the Shentel area, your service looks, feels and smells just like Sprint...right down to the name on the stores. NTelos has been one of our favorite networks. At least their customers will not suffer any degradation in service.
A carrier in northeast Pennsylvania, NEP Wireless, is giving up their cellular operations. AT&T bought their spectrum but not necessarily the network or their customers. NEP users are free to go where they want. Some transactions like this maintain the contract with the new carrier. Not in this case. AT&T may need to provide some incentives, even if it's just to bring your own phone. NEP is going officially pull the switch on September 22nd of this year.
The other network slip sliding away is MTA Wireless in Alaska. They haven't announced any shutdown of their existing network, but if you want to sign up with a nice new Smart phone, you need to sign up with Verizon, and MTA is an official retailer of Verizon products. Verizon used MTA's newly-acquired spectrum to build their own 4G-LTE network and made it available to MTA users. So, Verizon may or may not take over the MTA network, they really can take it or leave it.
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