Our specialty at the Mountain Wireless web site is reports and reviews of all the wireless carriers in the US, large and small. In some cases, carriers that sell out or give up are fairly clear about what they're doing. One network that has not been clear is ClearTalk. They built networks in several areas of the US and then sold off some of the pieces to other companies, most notably, Sprint. In this year's update we found ClearTalk no longer serves any markets in the eastern US which we had listed as in Tennessee and North Carolina.
Multiple calls have produced no updated information other than they still maintain networks in Texas, California and Arizona. Their web site states they also have local coverage in Colorado and New Mexico, but agents tell us there are "no local stores there," implying they no longer maintain a network there, either.
While this is a very small piece of the wireless pie, we feel it's an indication of how a company that doesn't, or can't, serve their customers well, can expect their business to deteriorate. We understand that some small carriers exist only until the owners find a buyer or that the electric bill runs higher than the money coming in. So, when parts of a network just disappear, we're concerned about the viability of the other parts. We hope ClearTalk's old properties went to a good home.
3 comments:
In other news... Immix Wireless (which IIRC was previously listed in the reviews) from what I can tell from observations has their towers back up and running (as far as I can tell they were completely MVNO for a while), except they're now calling themselves Limitless Mobile, have the same Pennsylvania county footprint as before, and based on last time I was in Centre County, using the same MCC-MNC. The nationwide plans if one doesn't rate chase seem nice, but they've left themselves a lot of latitude as to what constitutes excessive roaming in their ToS.
Jonathan, Nice catch! We completely lost what happened to Immix. We'll look into what Limitless offers and add them back in. What Rating do they deserve, maybe a "3" or "4"?
All good, Bill. My feeling is either really. Interestingly after reading your post I recalled that they under their previous legal name (Keystone Wireless) got an ARRA Stimulus grant to upgrade to 3G, but hopefully they keep the EDGE on for a while with AT&T et al wanting to turn it off. Good spotting on the British connection. I was wondering why their website seemed a little odd with the whole wholesale/MVNE operation being mentioned. Too bad I no longer live in their service area (now just outside of it).
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