U.S. Cellular

[dkyeager]

https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/uscellular-lays-staff-it-continues-lose-customers

How deep are their pockets?

[S4GRU]

3 hours ago, dkyeager said:

https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/uscellular-lays-staff-it-continues-lose-customers

How deep are their pockets?

They should have sold to Tmo before they started majorly overlaying their rural footprint. Now Tmo doesn't need to buy them. Their customers are already churning to Tmo.

Robert

[Trip]

The big problem with someone buying them, in my mind, is that US Cellular doesn't neatly fit into anyone's existing network.  Where I grew up, they'd be an ideal fit for AT&T, and less so for T-Mobile, but not really for Verizon.  In other places, the only competing network available at a similar scale is AT&T, with Verizon being the one that would benefit most.  And I'm sure there are places I've not seen where it's [still] T-Mobile which would fit best. 

I feel like it almost has to be split geographically before being sold.  I'm wondering if the FCC or the Justice Department would even allow a sale to a single carrier, or if it'd have to be split across two of them.

Ultimately, US Cellular's primary problem, at least where I go, is lack of density.  They depend on in-market roaming quite a bit in some areas.  The CDMA service was and still is very good, but LTE just doesn't do the job as well, and they've failed to add sites to compensate.  Meanwhile, in places where they've had to add density due to lack of spectrum, they've ended up spending money to build towers in rural areas that I'm not sure are actually needed coverage-wise if only they'd had enough spectrum.  And even in those areas, I hear complaints about hand-offs.

I'm guessing they'll end up selling at some point.  Only question is what it looks like.

- Trip

[red_dog007]

Net income is still positive.  I would imagine if they start trending negative in their finances, they would just sell off some spectrum assets, markets or portions of markets that are less profitable first.

I wouldn't be surprised to see them even go private. 

Edited May 9 by red_dog007

[dkyeager]

https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/uscellular-cto-says-fwa-offering-wildly-successful

Does this mean cell phone service is even less profitable?