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Comments on news posted 2014-04-07 14:38:01: Cincinnati Bell has announced that the company will be selling its wireless business and PCS, AWS and 700 MHz spectrum to Verizon in a deal worth $210 million. ..

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SunnyD
join:2009-03-20
Madison, AL

SunnyD

Member

Wireless is a Cash Cow*

*For incumbents only.

Mr Guy
@charter.com

Mr Guy

Anon

said by SunnyD:

*For incumbents only.

so?

tshirt
Premium Member
join:2004-07-11
Snohomish, WA

tshirt to SunnyD

Premium Member

to SunnyD
said by SunnyD:

*For incumbents only.

Cincinnati Bell is about as incumbent to the telephone business as you can get and 16 years in wireless is several generations.
This is more about the end of limited local players, needing the size and footprint to compete nationwide.
You can be sure Cincinnati Bell got plenty of money for the spectrum and whatever customers who will stick through the transition.
Trogdor9000
join:2005-07-12
Cincinnati, OH

Trogdor9000

Member

I live in Cincinnati and I am surprised it went to Verizon.

Cincy Bell has no LTE, is all GSM based and has had roaming contracts with both ATT and T-Mobile over the years. They have never released a CDMA phone either.

I am glad they are keeping their fixed line. They are doing awesome at it. I have 50/10 and I sometimes get bursts of almost 90 mbps download

Mr Guy
@charter.com

Mr Guy

Anon

said by Trogdor9000:

I live in Cincinnati and I am surprised it went to Verizon.

Cincy Bell has no LTE, is all GSM based and has had roaming contracts with both ATT and T-Mobile over the years. They have never released a CDMA phone either.

They are selling their spectrum to Verizon. And their spectrum fits in nicely with what Verizon already has in that area. Doesn't matter what it's being used for now. Verizon current 700 MHz spectrum used to be used for TV until 5 years ago.
Trogdor9000
join:2005-07-12
Cincinnati, OH

Trogdor9000

Member

But I am saying the pain it is to switch customers over to CDMA. It might be a small enough pool of people that it wont be too bad
SunnyD
join:2009-03-20
Madison, AL

SunnyD to Mr Guy

Member

to Mr Guy
said by Mr Guy :

said by SunnyD:

*For incumbents only.

so?

So don't expect any competition to help control or bring down prices any time soon, if ever.

tshirt
Premium Member
join:2004-07-11
Snohomish, WA

tshirt to Trogdor9000

Premium Member

to Trogdor9000
Within a year or so most phones will handle CDMA or GSM and all will use sims so they can build the LTE network and transition people later on
ISurfTooMuch
join:2007-04-23
Tuscaloosa, AL

ISurfTooMuch to SunnyD

Member

to SunnyD
I think it could, just not in this case.

The problem for Cincinnati Bell is that they're a carrier with a very small footprint, which means that, if a customer left the metro area, they'd be roaming. At that point, the company has two choices: charge the customer for roaming or not charge them and absorb the cost. Since most people expect their plans to include nationwide roaming, that rules out the first option. So that means the company has to eat those roaming charges or hide them in the overall bill, resulting in higher prices overall. Not a good prospect for a small company.

Gilitar
join:2012-02-01
Mobile, AL

Gilitar

Member

C Spire and US cellular

C Spire and US cellular won't be far behind. I look for T Mobile or Sprint to acquire both of them in the near future.
BiggA
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Central CT

BiggA to Mr Guy

Premium Member

to Mr Guy

Re: Wireless is a Cash Cow*

Exactly. The phone swap-out cost is minimal compared to the value of the spectrum. People upgrade anyways, so in a year or two, they can switch that spectrum over to LTE.

fel0nious
@spcsdns.net

fel0nious to ISurfTooMuch

Anon

to ISurfTooMuch
Exactly, and this was crushing the profitability of the company as a whole. I stuck with them as long as possible and they continued to force users to swallow more and more costs to offset the roaming losses. It was really bad for families with kids off at college, because you had to maintain an 80/20 balance of in/out of network data usage, per line, or you were cut off. Personally I think T-mobile would've been a better suitor, competition wise, but I'm not sure if they could've pulled it off.
BiggA
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Central CT
·Frontier FiberOp..
Asus RT-AC68

BiggA to Gilitar

Premium Member

to Gilitar

Re: C Spire and US cellular

Not sure who will eat up C Spire, but US Cellular will go to AT&T. They already dumped the Chicago market, which is the only major divestiture (plus Downeast Maine, but that's hardly a major market, and an easy divestiture to Verizon for spectrum, network, and subs). USCC's spectrum fits up perfectly with what AT&T doesn't have, and now that AT&T is running quad band LTE, and they promised to switch to Band 12 from 17 in their phones (although they haven't yet), they are the perfect match.
Os
join:2011-01-26
US

Os

Member

US Cellular's network is compatible with Verizon and Sprint. I would consider them the frontrunners for it, especially Sprint who already took US Cellular's markets in Chicago and St. Louis.
juicem2
join:2006-03-05
Mastic Beach, NY

juicem2

Member

Good expansion

To bad Verizon has no interest in expanding Fios. They could have bought out the wire line business and converted the fiber optic TV to Fios.
TBBroadband
join:2012-10-26
Fremont, OH

TBBroadband to BiggA

Member

to BiggA

Re: Wireless is a Cash Cow*

a year or two? It may take longer than that. You still have to get those to upgrade, and this approved, etc. It will take a year to get everything in order to move those customers over to the VZW billing system.
TBBroadband

TBBroadband to fel0nious

Member

to fel0nious
Many carriers have that same 80/20 balance. TMO has it, Sprint has it, and I'm sure if you use VZW and roam more than 60% of the time you are in your "home" coverage they will do the same.
TBBroadband

TBBroadband to juicem2

Member

to juicem2

Re: Good expansion

Cinci Bell is NOT going to sell their wireline business. They make a killing on it and they know it. Plus their the own "bell" left that wasn't part of MaBell and the only ILEC that actually owns an HFC network as well.

swintec
Premium Member
join:2003-12-19
Alfred, ME

swintec to BiggA

Premium Member

to BiggA

Re: C Spire and US cellular

said by BiggA:

Not sure who will eat up C Spire, but US Cellular will go to AT&T. They already dumped the Chicago market, which is the only major divestiture (plus Downeast Maine, but that's hardly a major market, and an easy divestiture to Verizon for spectrum, network, and subs).

Chicago went to sprint. Where was it said that USC sold out downeast maine? Maine is one of their better markets, doesnt make sense they would piece it apart like that.

USC and Sprint are very cozy with each other. LTE roaming between the two and other smaller carriers is very close.

A sprint take over of USC would be fantastic (if only for the beefed up rural coverage in USC markets) and is really the best option for them I think.

fel0nious
@rr.com

fel0nious to TBBroadband

Anon

to TBBroadband

Re: Wireless is a Cash Cow*

I don't doubt it, but with cbw it wasn't explicit roaming so much as implicit nationwide coverage through TMo and ATT. With the big nationwide carriers, it's not as common to be in a populated area and be roaming. But outside of the Cincy network, in a populated area, you were considered out of network (which was different than roaming), and all was well until you hit that split. I was just pointing out that it was untenable in a world where a growing number of customers do actually travel out of network.
juicem2
join:2006-03-05
Mastic Beach, NY

juicem2 to TBBroadband

Member

to TBBroadband

Re: Good expansion

It doesn't matter anyway. Verizon has no interest in wireline. All Lowell cares about is wireless.

Mr Guy
@charter.com

Mr Guy to TBBroadband

Anon

to TBBroadband

Re: Wireless is a Cash Cow*

said by TBBroadband:

Many carriers have that same 80/20 balance. TMO has it, Sprint has it, and I'm sure if you use VZW and roam more than 60% of the time you are in your "home" coverage they will do the same.

Except since Verizon is pretty much everywhere you don't roam that much.
Mr Guy

Mr Guy to Trogdor9000

Anon

to Trogdor9000
said by Trogdor9000:

But I am saying the pain it is to switch customers over to CDMA. It might be a small enough pool of people that it wont be too bad

Verizon is moving away from CDMA anyway. They will be selling phones without CDMA radios within a year and they will be starting their VoLTE service by the end of this year. Verizon plans to be CDMA free no later than the end of 2020 anyway. Probably sooner.
Mr Guy

Mr Guy to juicem2

Anon

to juicem2

Re: Good expansion

said by juicem2:

It doesn't matter anyway. Verizon has no interest in wireline. All Lowell cares about is wireless.

Wireless where where most of the profit comes from. So yeah that's what he cares about the most. I'm pretty sure though he is defiantly concerned if FiOS is making a profit or not.
ISurfTooMuch
join:2007-04-23
Tuscaloosa, AL

ISurfTooMuch to Mr Guy

Member

to Mr Guy

Re: Wireless is a Cash Cow*

True, but it hasn't always been that way. Just maybe 7-10 years ago, there were still a decent number of places where you could be roaming. Remember, before Cingular got the old AT&T Wireless, they had no native coverage in NYC, and T-Mobile had no native coverage in California. And, until VZW bought out Unicel and ALLTEL, their coverage in Alabama and Mississippi was limited. In Alabama, if you were outside of a major metro area, you roamed on ALLTEL, and, in Mississippi, if you were just about anywhere but Jackson, you roamed on Cellular South.
juicem2
join:2006-03-05
Mastic Beach, NY

juicem2 to Mr Guy

Member

to Mr Guy

Re: Good expansion

Well that's my point. They are so worried about profit now for the investors. Fios is making a profit. Verizon doesn't want to take the hit now and upgrade the non Fios markets. They are trying to ditch the regular wireline business. They are hanging up on millions upon millions of customers. If they upgrade the other markets it will pay off in the long run. People are literally begging for this service.
BiggA
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Central CT

BiggA to TBBroadband

Premium Member

to TBBroadband

Re: Wireless is a Cash Cow*

After it's approved.
BiggA

BiggA to Os

Premium Member

to Os

Re: C Spire and US cellular

Sprint doesn't have ANY Cellular anywhere, so it makes no sense to buy a carrier with cellular. Plus, they are an urban/wholesale carrier which doesn't fit USCC's model.
BiggA

BiggA to swintec

Premium Member

to swintec
I was saying when AT&T acquires USCC, Downeast Maine has to go, as it overlaps with AT&T's CLR. The rest fits in with AT&T's spectrum and markets.
BiggA

BiggA to Os

Premium Member

to Os
Also, suggesting Verizon would take them over is rather idiotic. They would have to divest almost every market so that they didn't end up with both sides of CLR and virtually all the customers (since customers follow whoever has the coverage, which follows whoever has the CLR spectrum).
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