- While other regional carriers are getting bought out, C Spire remains the largest privately held carrier in the U.S.
- C Spire was doing fiber before fiber was cool – and it's determined to succeed with FWA
- Plans call for deploying 5G standalone in 2025
Given that UScellular is the latest in a long stream of carriers that have put themselves up for sale — and Bluegrass Cellular, West Central Wireless and Pioneer Cellular have all recently exited the wireless business — the fact that C Spire is still standing amid the consolidation is a remarkable feat.
When asked how the company has done it, President and CEO Suzy Hays told Fierce in an exclusive interview that the answer, of course, lies in diversification. And guess what? It’s what everybody’s talking about these days: fiber to the home, fiber to the business, fiber everywhere.
“If you think about it, our fiber network powers our wireless, our residential and business services. There’s a lot of synergies there,” she told Fierce in an interview from C Spire’s headquarters in Ridgeland, Mississippi.
But the regional provider is not settling on fiber. Hays said they have been way ahead of the game with trialing fixed wireless access (FWA) — and standalone (SA) 5G is in the plan for 2025.
Hays, who took the helm in July, has worked roles in practically every corner of the company during her 30-year tenure, before taking over as president and CEO in July. She succeeded long-time C Spire CEO Hu Meena, who now serves as chairman.
Ahead of the game
C Spire was one of the first carriers to deploy fiber to its towers because it was important for the wireless customer experience, she said. In 2013 – the year she led the launch of fiber-to-the home with C Spire Fiber – C Spire invited the mayors of cities and towns in Mississippi to hear about how fiber would be the future, similar to how towns along highways prospered thanks to their proximity to transportation.
“We did a lot of education around the importance of having fiber because back then, people didn’t really even understand why they needed more bandwidth, believe it or not. All the applications came along later. Now it’s obvious, but as a result of that, we ended up having nine cities and towns in our very first year and grew very rapidly,” she said.
Similarly, when C Spire launched wireless services, C Spire was told that people in the Mississippi Delta would never need a cell phone. “We were like, well, we don’t agree” and proceeded to build a network – one that has withstood the wrath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and many more storms and disasters since.
FWA strategy
While it’s often been first to adopt new technologies, it can also get ahead of itself, Hays admitted. Take fixed wireless access (FWA), for example. Like some other players in wireless, C Spire offered a FWA product years ago, but the technology wasn’t ready. It tried again a few years later, and it still wasn’t ready. Now, it’s attempting to launch it again, with better customer premise equipment and hopes of emulating the 5G FWA success stories at T-Mobile and Verizon.
“I think that it is certainly matured from a technology standpoint to the point where it would make sense for us” in areas of its footprint where it doesn’t already have fiber, she said.
“You have to keep in mind, too, we do have a lot of fiber in the ground, and a lot of it's in rural areas, but there are still people who don't have access to fiber,” Hays said.
The company’s largest infrastructure vendors are Nokia, Mavenir and Amdocs and it’s increasingly working with HPE. Unlike some other regional U.S. carriers, it has not used Huawei, which is now banned in the U.S., so it doesn’t face the burden of ripping that out and replacing it.
C Spire’s been a long-time active member of the Competitive Carriers Association (CCA), with Meena having served as CCA board chairman in 2011-2012.
CCA President and CEO Tim Donovan acknowledged 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 as well as fiber home internet and business services,” he told Fierce.
Growing, but how much?
C Spire has won government grants for fiber builds and it will continue to pursue those as it seeks to fill in holes. It’s also looking to deploy 5G standalone in 2025.
Being privately held, C Spire doesn’t release figures on the total number of customers it serves, a spokesperson said. According to Hays, the company is growing.
“We are still growing holistically at a very rapid pace,” she said. Besides adding wireless subscribers, “we are focused on accelerating the growth in the home fiber and the business space as well. We’ve also done a lot of acquisitions over the years. We will continue to grow the business.”
Recon Analytics lead analyst Roger Entner figures C Spire has about 1 million wireless customers, but that part of the business isn’t growing by leaps and bounds.
“If they were growing rapidly, they would scream from the top of their lungs: Look at how quickly we’re growing. I believe them that they’re growing, but they’re growing really, really slowly,” he said.
“C Spire is well managed," he added. "They did very well with mobile and they were prescient enough to pour that money into fiber, which is a lot more defensible than mobile. Now they have a very good, large fiber network in Mississippi that they can bundle with wireless. They’re sitting pretty."