Shentel 3rd Quarter NV Update

[DCC233]

Shentel has there 3rd quarter call today, but the preliminary release looks good from a financial perspective They are building out there area very quickly and bringing the towers online as tracked on Sensorly.

 

The link for the call today @ 10:00 am EST can be found here (http://investor.shen...?EventID=119646)

The pre-release can be found here (http://investor.shen...eleaseID=718192)

 

Some quick highlights from the release that I liked:

 

"The Company expects that capital spending will increase significantly during the fourth quarter as the Company accelerates the pace of upgrading cell sites as part of the Network Vision project."

 

"The Company expects to spend a total of approximately $115 million on capital expenditures to implement 4G LTE services in its PCS service area in conjunction with Sprint Nextel's Network Vision project, $55 million during 2012 and $60 million in 2013, in addition to on-going capital spending to support capacity needs on the wireless network."

 

For a company of Shentel's size those are big numbers, but also show there level of commitment to NV where they stand to realize their biggest gain from their agreement with Sprint.

[jefbal99]

Anybody blogging this?

[Boosted20V]

Anybody blogging this?

 

Launching around Thanksgiving, listening in now.

 

200 sites done by year end of 510. 40% of all sites.

 

Originally planned on launching end of 3rd Q but Alc-Lu had supply shortages.

 

Hurricane Sandy - Impact only to PA wireless network, 100 sites affected, all back online and was caused by loss of power.

[DCC233]

Just a thought that popped into my head while listening to the call, but would anyone be interested in putting together a few questions (1-3) for the next quarterly/year-end call? Having listened to many of there quarterly results calls it usually is the same 3-4 analysts that participate, but I feel there questions while focused financially really miss some of the technical elements that also have financial impact and would be relevant to readers of this site.

 

Just an idea I had, as there is little chance anyone would get to propose a question on the Sprint earnings call.

 

Plenty of time to plan if anyone is interested.

[leozno1]

Launching around Thanksgiving, listening in now.

 

200 sites done by year end of 510. 40% of all sites.

 

Originally planned on launching end of 3rd Q but Alc-Lu had supply shortages.

 

Hurricane Sandy - Impact only to PA wireless network, 100 sites affected, all back online and was caused by loss of power.

 

Sorry I didn't listen in to the call. Did they specify what cities are launching around Thanksgiving?

[DCC233]

I don't believe they mentioned the cities that they wanted to launch before Thanksgiving, but I believe they mentioned wanting to launch Harrisburg, Hershey, and York before year-end. The transcript should be posted online in a day or two if you want to verify.

[Boosted20V]

I don't believe they mentioned the cities that they wanted to launch before Thanksgiving, but I believe they mentioned wanting to launch Harrisburg, Hershey, and York before year-end. The transcript should be posted online in a day or two if you want to verify.

 

They did mention where they plan on launching but I missed the totality of it. I remember he said the I81 corrider from Harrisonburg, VA to Harrisburg, PA including the greater Harrisburg region. Seeing as I live there, thats what I tuned in to, but I agree, we'll have to check the transcript once seekingalpha has it posted.

[Boosted20V]

Directly from the transcript:

 

We still anticipate that we will be able to complete Network Vision projects by year-end 2013 for the original budget projection of 115 million. We had planned to launch LTE at the end of the third quarter, but delays from our vendor related to logistics execution and material shortages has pushed our timeline back several months. We now plan to launch LTE just prior to Thanksgiving on sites that carry approximately 37% of our current 3G data usage and cover approximately 45% of our 2.1 million covered POPS.

By year-end the sites where LTE will be in service will carry approximately 50% of our current 3G data usage, and will cover just over 50% of our covered POPS. The service will be available to our customers along Interstate 81, from (inaudible) north through Winchester, Virginia, Martinsburg, West Virginia and Hagerstown, Maryland. We also have significant coverage in the Greater Harrisburg, Liquorville, and Hershey, Pennsylvania areas.