Viaero: "Want a Tower? We'll Build a Tower."

Hey guys,

I travel through Nebraska a lot and have been following Viaero's GSM buildout across the state. Recently I decided to activate a phone on their network to check it out.

When I got to one of their retail stores, I was surprised to find that they have huge coverage map printouts with 'candidate' sites listed, each with a corresponding number (I think there were 26 shown). All the sites will be built (this year I presume). But what's cool is that they actually have voting booths set up so you can vote for the next site to be constructed.

Most interesting, there were also signs indicating that they would build a tower (within 180 days) in any town where they get signatures from at least 200 interested people! In my opinion, this really helps disproves the myth that wireless companies need significant populations to build out their networks. Viaero wouldn't be building these towers if there wasn't money in it for them. God knows they can't count on that much roaming revenue in those parts of the country.

Though they still have their work cut out for them, and their coverage map is slightly exaggerated compared to the results of my unscientific testing, I was very pleasantly surprised to discover how much new coverage there actually is. In many parts of rural Nebraska, the only other real choice is Alltel (there's Indigo Wireless in the panhandle, but they're just a really crappy roamer network), so I'm anxious to see Viaero give them a run for their money!

jk870

 

Actually, I don't believe Western Wireless ever owned the Cellular One franchise in the Nebraska panhandle. According to FCC docs it's run by Sagir Inc. (Rigas, spelled backward, as in John Rigas...founder of Adelphia who was indicted on several counts of fraud a few years back).

Cellular One (Sagir) threw up a few towers in the mid 90s, and quite frankly I don't think they had any interest in really serving the area. They added TDMA, I imagine for roaming revenue, a few years ago and shortly thereafter disappeared from the radar screen, with no store locations or advertising that I know of. I'm not very sure about the reasoning behind Sagir's change from Cellular One to Indigo, but I'm pretty sure it's still owned by John Rigas. Last time I was in the area there was only an analog signal on the A band, so I'm not sure whether the TDMA was just down or has been removed altogether.

Northeastern Colorado Cellular Inc. (back in the days before they became Viaero) petitioned for control of Sagir's unserved areas in 2001 I believe, so Sagir threw up a couple more towers and the FCC subsequently ruled against Viaero. It's a shame, because Viaero clearly has an interest in serving rural areas...they had been trying to get into Nebraska for quite some time.

 

I've been following this closely also. Viaero has actually been building their own towers, and they do it very quickly. Most are freestanding structures (like the one shown in the link I posted above), the majority have been 200' tall, and they can accomodate 2 or 3 digital microwave antennas as well as antennas for 2 or 3 other carriers.

Zoning has been a minor issue; a few applications I know of have gotten hung up, so I don't know how they can promise 6 months. I guess they figure they'll get the 200 people who signed to lobby their planning commissions?