Here’s how C Spire bucked the trend of wireless consolidation

• While other regional airlines are being acquired, C Spire remains the largest private airline in the United States
• C Spire made fiberglass before fiberglass was cool – and is determined to succeed with FWA
• Independent deployment of 5G is planned for 2025

Given that UScellular is the latest in a long line of wireless carriers to put themselves up for sale – and Bluegrass Cellular, West Central Wireless and Pioneer Cellular have all recently exited the wireless business – the fact is that C Spire always still in the midst of consolidation, a problem a remarkable achievement.

When asked how the company did this, President and CEO Suzy Hays said in an exclusive interview with Fierce that the answer, of course, lies in diversification. And guess what? It’s what everyone is talking about these days: fiber to the home, fiber to the business, fiber everywhere.

“If you think about it, our fiber optic network powers our mobile, residential and business services. There’s a lot of synergy there,” she told Fierce in an interview from C Spire’s headquarters in Ridgeland, Mississippi.

But the regional provider does not rely on fiber optics. Hays said they were well ahead of the competition in testing fixed wireless access (FWA) – and standalone (SA) 5G is planned for 2025.

Hays, who took the helm in July, served in virtually every area of ​​the company during her 30-year tenure before taking over as president and CEO in July. She succeeded C Spire’s long-time CEO Hu Meena, who now serves as chairman.

Before the game

C Spire was one of the first wireless carriers to add fiber to its towers because it was important to the wireless customer experience, she said. In 2013 – the year she led C Spire Fiber’s rollout of fiber to the home – C Spire invited the mayors of cities and towns in Mississippi to learn about what the future of fiber would look like Cities along highways thereby prospered due to their proximity to transportation.

“We did a lot of educating about the importance of fiber, because back then people didn’t even really understand why they needed more bandwidth, believe it or not. All applications came later. Now it’s obvious, but the result was that in the first year we had nine cities and towns and grew very quickly,” she said.

Likewise when C Spire introduced wireless services. C Spire was told that the people of the Mississippi Delta would never need a cell phone. “We said, well, we disagree,” and began building a network — one that has withstood the wrath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and many other storms and disasters since.

FWA strategy

Although the company is often the first to introduce new technologies, it can also outdo itself, Hays acknowledged. Take Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) for example. Like some other wireless vendors, C Spire offered an FWA product years ago, but the technology was not yet fully developed. A few years later it tried again, but it still wasn’t finished. Now it’s trying to re-launch it, with better customer features and in the hope of replicating the 5G FWA success stories at T-Mobile and Verizon.

“I think it’s certainly mature enough from a technology perspective that it would make sense for us,” she said, in areas of its presence where fiber doesn’t yet exist.

“You also have to remember that we have a lot of fiber in the soil, and a lot of it in rural areas, but there are still people who don’t have access to fiber,” Hays said.

The company’s largest infrastructure providers are Nokia, Mavenir and Amdocs, and it is increasingly working with HPE. Unlike some other regional U.S. wireless carriers, the company hasn’t resorted to Huawei, which is now banned in the U.S., so it won’t face the burden of ripping it out and replacing it.

C Spire has long been an active member of the Competitive Carriers Association (CCA), with Meena serving as CCA Board Chair from 2011 to 2012.

CCA President and CEO Tim Donovan recognized C Spire’s diversification as one of the keys to its longevity. “They have diversified to meet all of their customers’ connectivity needs, including wireless and fiber home Internet and business services,” he told Fierce.

Growing, but how much?

C Spire has received government grants for fiber optic construction and will continue to pursue these to fill gaps. It also plans to deploy 5G as a standalone device in 2025.

Because it is a privately held company, C Spire does not disclose figures on the total number of customers served, a spokesman said. According to Hays, the company is growing.

“We’re still growing very quickly holistically,” she said. In addition to acquiring wireless customers, “we are also focused on accelerating growth in the home fiber and business segments.” We have also made many acquisitions over the years. We will continue to grow the business.”

Recon Analytics senior analyst Roger Entner believes C Spire has about a million wireless customers, but that part of the business isn’t growing by leaps and bounds.

“If they were growing fast, they would be screaming at the top of their lungs: Look how fast we are growing. I believe them that they are growing, but they are growing very, very slowly,” he said.

“C Spire is well managed,” he added. “They did very well with cellular and had the foresight to put the money into fiber, which is much more justifiable than cellular.” Now they have a very good, large fiber network in Mississippi that they can bundle with Wi-Fi. They sit nicely.”