Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Cellular South Will Expand Network With 13 More Sites

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2003 12:49:01 -0400

Cellular South Will Expand Network With 13 More Sites
Source: Commercial Appeal, The
Publication date: 2003-10-01
Arrival time: 2003-10-03

Jackson, Miss.-based Cellular South has launched a $38 million expansion to its
digital wireless network, stepping up its service by adding 13 more cell sites.
The company expects the upgrade to the network, which now has 202 cell sites, to
be completed by mid-2004.

Cellular South is adding towers to expand geographic coverage and improve service.

"With these additional cell sites, our network will efficiently accommodate
increased call volume, provide better coverage where there may have been some
gaps, decrease the number of dropped and blocked calls and enhance our position to
offer more nonvoice products, like full E-mail capability," said Hu Meena, company
president.

Cellular South, one of the nation's largest privately held wireless providers,
provides wireless services to five Southern states: Mississippi, the Alabama Gulf
Coast, the Florida Panhandle, Southwest Tennessee and West Arkansas.

The highly competitive wireless market has companies upgrading and expanding their
networks in the Mid-South.

Cingular, which has about 218 cell sites in the area, plans to add 30 in 2004 -
investing more than $70 million in the West Tennessee region, said Keith Traster,
the company's Memphis general manager.

Nextel has 86 sites in the metro area, said Norma Tharp, Nextel's Atlanta-based
spokesman.

Verizon Wireless has 72 cell sites in metro Memphis and about 175 in West
Tennessee, said Dewanna Lofton, of Verizon's local public relations firm, McNeely
Pigott & Fox.
Sprint PCS would not reveal its number of sites in the metro area, but the company
is spending more than $6 million to expand its Memphis network.

Cellular South and Cingular each claim the Memphis area's best network quality.
The contrast is pretty stark.

While Cellular South provides services to five states, Cingular Wireless is the
brainchild of BellSouth and SBC, two Baby Bells that serve much of the United
States.
Cingular serves more than 22 million people, about four times the total population
of areas served by Cellular South.

Cingular serves customers in 43 of the nation's 50 largest metro areas.
Memphis is the sole metro that Cellular serves among the top 50.
Cellular South spokesman Jana Long cited a study by Southern Research Group, of
Jackson, Miss., that showed Cellular South edged out Cingular in Memphis for
network satisfaction.

Cellular South won a Memphis Regional Chamber Quality Cup for enhancement of its
network, she said.

An in-house survey showed 97 percent of Memphis customers are satisfied with
Cellular South service, she said.

Cellular South's dropped-call rate in Memphis is 0.6 percent, compared with an
industry average of about 5 percent, she said.
- Mark Watson: 529-5874

Publication date: 2003-10-01

http://cnniw.yellowbrix.com/pages/cnnmoney/Story.nsp?story_id=42272591&ID=cnnmoney&scategory=Business+and+Finance&

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