WASHINGTON – CTIA and Competitive Carriers Association (CCA) today released a new joint report highlighting the important role that regional wireless operators play in serving communities across the country. The report shows how continued support for regional wireless operators is critical to closing the digital divide, ensuring a thriving and competitive wireless marketplace and supporting local economic development.

“CCA’s members are doing the important work of bringing wireless service to the parts of the country that need connectivity most,” said CCA President & CEO, Tim Donovan. “America’s rural communities typically have smaller population bases scattered across challenging terrain and sometimes extreme climates. This requires federal, state, and local governments to play a key role in removing barriers and regulatory burdens, supporting service through properly targeted subsidy programs like the 5G Fund, finishing the job with Rip-and-Replace and making sure that regional providers can access the spectrum resources needed to continue to provide high-quality wireless service to their customers.”

“I’m so proud of our regional operators’ efforts to connect rural America and close the digital divide,” said CTIA President & CEO, Meredith Attwell Baker. “It’s not an easy task to provide robust wireless coverage across small communities with complicated topography. And it’s definitely harder without a pipeline of full-power spectrum that can travel across rural terrain from tower to tower. Reauthorizing the FCC’s spectrum auction authority with a defined pipeline of full-power, licensed spectrum is essential to allow regional operators to deploy 5G networks and provide local communities with the connectivity they need to support local job and economic growth.”

The new report, “Regional Wireless Providers: Closing the Digital Divide & Growing Digital Economies Across the U.S.” tells the story of seven wireless providers serving regions across the country, including tribal nations and historically underserved rural communities. The report shows how regional providers play a key role in offering high-quality mobile services, and in some cases, wireless home broadband, in some of the most remote areas of the country.

As their stories demonstrate, the wireless service they provide is often the only connectivity option available to the populations they serve, the lowest cost or the most efficient to deploy. Thanks to these operators, local communities are able to support local business, connect education institutions and hospital systems and attract industry and investment.

The report also highlights some of the challenges these providers face and the role that government policy plays. With a limited customer base spread over difficult, hard-to-reach areas, regional wireless providers rely on key government initiatives, such as the FCC’s 5G Fund or the Affordable Connectivity Program to create the necessary economic conditions to support network expansion. Regional providers also need more full-power spectrum and meaningful opportunities to acquire it to be able to deliver service over wide areas—a critical challenge in rural America.

Wireless providers showcased in the report include Appalachian Wireless of eastern Kentucky and western Virginia; Carolina West Wireless in northwestern North Carolina; Cellcom located in northeastern Wisconsin and the upper peninsula of Michigan; Cellular One which serves the Navajo, Hopi, Zuni and White Mountain Apache tribal nations as well as many rural communities throughout northern Arizona and New Mexico and southern Utah; GCI which serves Alaska; Southern Linc which offers wireless service to utilities, emergency response teams and related businesses and agencies in Alabama, Georgia and southeastern Mississippi; and Union Telephone Company in Wyoming, parts of Utah, Idaho, Montana and Colorado.



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About CTIA

CTIA® (www.ctia.org) represents the U.S. wireless communications industry and the companies throughout the mobile ecosystem that enable Americans to lead a 21st century connected life. The association’s members include wireless carriers, device manufacturers, suppliers as well as apps and content companies. CTIA vigorously advocates at all levels of government for policies that foster continued wireless innovation and investment. The association also coordinates the industry’s voluntary best practices, hosts educational events that promote the wireless industry and co-produces the industry’s leading wireless tradeshow. CTIA was founded in 1984 and is based in Washington, D.C.

About Competitive Carriers Association

Competitive Carriers Association (CCA) is the leading association for competitive wireless providers and stakeholders across the United States. Members range from small, rural carriers serving fewer than 5,000 customers to regional and nationwide providers serving millions of customers, as well as vendors and suppliers that provide products and services throughout the wireless communications ecosystem.