Boosted20V

From what I remember in an earnings call they supply ~20% of their own backhaul.

Also: With the completion of its 4G LTE Network and cable upgrades, the Company anticipates that its fiscal year 2014 capital expenditure will total approximately $74 million. Shentel expects that capital expenditure per segment will break down as follows: 2014 Capital Expenditure by Segment Segment Capital Expenditure Wireless $25.1M Cable $18.9M Wireline $22.5M Other $7.5M Total $74.0M The $74M will be allocated 24% to maintenance CAPEX, 24% to capacity, 30% to network expansion and 22% will be spent only upon the success of obtaining new revenue generating projects.

Shentel released their Q4 earnings and had a solid increase of contract customers. So for all of the hate directed toward the Sprint brand, apparently in areas where the network is strong, consumers respond: The Company announced that net postpaid subscriber additions increased 50.4% to a record 6,054 for the fourth quarter primarily due to an aggressive customer acquisition campaign and reduced churn as a result of the Company's recently completed 4G LTE upgrade. Net postpaid subscriber additions for fiscal year 2013 were 10,829. Shentel's postpaid churn rate in the fourth quarter was 1.69% compared to 1.87% in the same quarter last year. Year-end postpaid customers increased 4.1% to 273,721. The Company's 2013 annual postpaid churn rate was 1.75%.

He quotes every other providers peak speeds, but mentions Sprint's advertised speeds and holds it against them. Mentions other carriers aggregating bands which hasn't been done, and says Sprint won't do the same. Certainly had a bone to pick going into writing that article.

Agree. B41 will have no bearing on the ability to handle call/text volume, I don't believe(or did I read that texts can be passed through LTE via eCSFB?). This should all still pass through the 1x side.

Wow, good to know. I live right next to a WiMAX site. I'm surprised a company as small as Shentel can afford the cash outlays of these modernizations. I know it was a big topic in their earnings calls regarding their large amount of capital investments. Glad to see it though. However, I'm curious what will occur here since Sprint owns the old WiMAX sites post Clear merger and Shentel rents their own space on towers or owns their own towers.... will the old WiMAX sites be turned over to Shentel? Or will many be decommissioned and simply co-located on Shentel racks?

Shentel came to an agreement with Sprint to roll out B41? I can't see them rolling out much B41 yet as the population density in their areas just isn't that high to necessitate it. Can't wait for 800mhz LTE though.

Agreed, I have a 4 line family plan and I see no point in moving to a Framily plan as it currently stands. Getting less for more, outside of unlimited voice minutes which I hardly use any of.

I'm waiting to see what happens but I'm guessing you'll be on the hook to pay the price you always have but won't be eligible for upgrades. If you would want to upgrade, I'm thinking you'll have to go on Easy Pay and pay that in ADDITION to your Everything Plan.

I have a family plan with 4 different contract end dates, 3 of which aren't yet upgrade eligible. If I move these lines to the Framily plan, the lines which aren't upgrade eligible are still in a contract until their normal contract end dates, correct? Even though I move to Framily, technically I'll still have contracts on those lines?

Agreed. Disguised price increases for those who use upgrades.

And I understand companies want growth, it makes sense. But when you're dropping subs, it's just as important to keep existing subs as to gain new ones.

I have a family plan on ED1500 with staggered contract dates. So if they nix subsidies, I'll have no choice but to jump to a Framily plan. I would think Sprint would keep all the 2 year contract upgrades they possibly could but I guess not.

I would have to imagine that as long as they haven't bumped you off of your old ED1500 plan that you can still get upgrades subsidized. Otherwise, what a freaking rip-off. I'm not paying for the ED1500 plan price without a subsidy included. Is the thought really that they are going COMPLETELY away from subsidies even on older plans?

I misspoke in my earlier post. The ATT merger valuation was $39 billion. Apparently, DT is asking in that range: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-19/deutsche-telekom-says-t-mobile-value-returns-to-at-t-deal-levels.html?cmpid=yhoo

Looks like DT is pushing for a valuation of T-Mobile in the vicinity of what ATT was willing to pay. I can't see paying $50+ Billion for T-Mobile. What a mess.

I noticed that "anomaly" on the map. If you look at network.sprint.com it isn't listed as having 2 data speed upgrades which pretty much every other LTE site is at the very least. I think this may have been incorrectly updated in Robert's maps.

A site in the Lehigh Valley? Which one? I've scouted around most.

CDMA is more advanced than GSM. I believe you're thinking Of WCDMA.

I wouldn't want a Wimax device at this point. I would definitely go with an LTE one. Sprint has stated they'll keep Wimax up until 2015 I believe, but still, those are some old phones.

Even the pink for high-speed coverage doesn't denote which. When you click on an area, it will then say 4GLTE, 4G, or 3G depending.

Not at all. They can remain independent if they really chose to, but they will have no money for spectrum and upgrades if they keep hurting margins.

If T-Mobile goes it alone, do you really believe they can afford to keep offering such incentives?

Agreed on everything. The phone we were swapped to was on iOS6 and when updated to 7.0.4 everything went swimmingly. It is BS however that Apple won't acknowledge the issue.

My mom's iPhone experience just this. Since the 7.0.2 update, it could NOT authenticate a data session over 1x or 3G, LTE worked fine when in range. The phone would attempt to connect to 3G, then bounce back to 1x. When using either, however, it gave an error for the data session. As in, even slow 1x data wouldn't work. I found a few threads of people complaining about a similar situation. We went to the Apple store today. The "genius" tried to tell us it was a Sprint issue and that he really couldn't explain it. He claimed they would replace the phone for a measly $270. After asking to speak to the manager, they waived the fee and swapped the device. I restored a back up to the phone, works perfectly now. SOMETHING got botched with 3g/1x authentication with the 7.0.2 update. Another iPhone on my account went straight to 7.0.4 from 7 and it was fine. Just a heads up for those experiencing this.