Cellcom (United States)

Last updated
Cellcom
Type Private
Industry Telecommunications
Founded1987;35 years ago (1987)
Headquarters De Pere, Wisconsin, USA
Products 4G LTE, CDMA, EvDO, SMS (text messaging), MMS (picture messaging), iPhone, Android
Parent Nsight
Website cellcom.com

Cellcom (officially called New-Cell Inc. dba Cellcom) is a regional wireless service provider based in De Pere, Wisconsin, with roots that date back to 1910. Cellcom began providing service from its office in Green Bay in 1987, when its parent company, Nsight, entered the wireless industry. [1]

Contents

Cellcom offers a variety of wireless communication devices, including feature handsets, smartphones, home phones, tablets, residential and mobile broadband. Outside of its own regional network, the company partners with other regional and national carriers to provide nationwide voice and data service. Cellcom uses CDMA and 4G LTE technology. Cellcom's retail area includes northeast and central Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

History

Cellcom's parent company, Nsight, was founded on March 10, 1910, when a group of Pulaski business people met at the local drug store to discuss providing telephone service to their growing community. From that meeting, the Pulaski Merchants and Farmers Telephone Company formed. [2]

In 1968 the company's name changed to Northeast Telephone Company. Northeast Communications, Inc. was formed as a holding company in 1982, and Northeast Telephone Company became a subsidiary. In 1999, Northeast Communications of Wisconsin, Inc. began doing business as Nsight. Today, Nsight's subsidiaries include Cellcom, Nsight Telservices and Nsight Tower. [3]

Nsight has been a family-run business since 1923. [3]

Green cell sites

The first alternative energy cell site in the upper Midwest, built in Ackley, Wis. and activated on April 22, 2008, delivers wireless service to an area that previously had many dead zones. [4]

Equipment for the green cell site underwent rigorous testing prior to installation and features multiple backups to ensure continuity of service. The primary source of energy for this site is sunlight collected using a 6.3 kilowatt solar panel array. The energy gathered from the sun is converted into electricity and stored in batteries. The cell site draws energy for operation from these batteries. On dark or cloudy days, energy generated by a wind mill supplements the solar power to maintain operation. A hydrogen fuel cell serves as a backup for both of these energy producers. The final backup is a diesel generator that can be hooked up to maintain service if all other power sources fail.

In 2010, Cellcom converted the Ackley site to a grid-tie location and it now feeds the extra energy produced from the solar panels and wind turbine back to the power company and, in turn, became even more efficient.

A second green cell site was activated in 2009 on Chambers Island in Door County. The cliffs lining Door County's rugged shoreline were blocking the signals from mainland towers, leaving many area residents with limited cellular service, as well as leaving emergency personnel with limited radio coverage. The green cell site runs on batteries charged by solar panels at the base of the tower and a wind turbine installed on tower. A propane generator is available as a back-up source of power if there is inadequate wind or sun to charge the batteries. [5]

Femtocells

Cellcom was the first CDMA carrier in the U.S. to be a member of the non-profit organization founded in 2007 to promote worldwide femtocell deployment. Femto technology offers a low cost and highly effective solution to dead zones, particularly in small areas such as a home. In addition, a femtocell offers higher data rates, better voice quality and improved multi-media experiences. [6]

In 2009, Cellcom received the first Femtocell Industry Award for significant progress or commercial launch by a small carrier at the Femtocells World Summit in London. [7]

Network

[8]

Cellcom is a Verizon LTE in Rural America (LRA) partner. Through this partnership, customers of both carriers will benefit from the high-speed, fourth-generation long-term evolution (LTE) services. [9]

Cellcom has access to Verizon Wireless's extensive 700;MHz and AWS 1 spectrum holdings for use on their network. [10]

Cellcom has made plans to extend its 4G LTE infrastructure into almost all of its existing 3G CDMA network during 2016.

Other awards

Cellcom and its parent company Nsight were recognized in 2009 as the business recipient of the Brown County Ethics in Business Awards. [11]

Spokespeople

The company has generally utilized head coaches and executives of the NFL's Green Bay Packers as their spokespeople, although due to Verizon's official wireless provider sponsorship with the league (along with the Packers having a gate provider sponsorship at Lambeau Field with Verizon, and an additional sponsorship with U.S. Cellular for stadium wi-fi and a showplace store in the stadium atrium), the team's logos and names cannot be used nor mentioned, and generic green and gold clothing is worn in ads instead.

Mike Holmgren was the first Cellcom spokesman from 1996 to 1999, followed by team president Ron Wolf in 2000, and Mike Sherman from 2002 to 2005. Mike McCarthy was featured in team advertising until departing the Packers in 2018, where McCarthy would come into situations and throw a challenge flag in situations where Cellcom was then compared more favorably to the national providers. [12] [13] In the fall of 2019, current Packers coach Matt LaFleur began to endorse the company in advertising.

The company has had two departures from Packer figures as spokesmen; Eli Mattson, a third runner-up in season three of NBC's America's Got Talent , promoted the brand from 2009 until 2010. With McCarthy's departure, the company had a more general advertising campaign promoting its locally based customer support, with Cellcom call center agents in their ads using local landmarks and songs to remind customers that they're based in northeastern Wisconsin.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bell Mobility</span>

Bell Mobility Inc. is a Canadian wireless network operator and the division of Bell Canada which offers wireless services across Canada. It operates networks using LTE and HSPA+ on its mainstream networks. Bell Mobility is the third-largest wireless carrier in Canada, with 10.1 million subscribers as of Q3 2020.

Verizon is an American wireless network operator that previously operated as a separate division of Verizon Communications under the name Verizon Wireless. In a 2019 reorganization, Verizon moved the wireless products and services into the divisions Verizon Consumer and Verizon Business, and stopped using the Verizon Wireless name. Verizon is the largest wireless carrier in the United States, with 142.8 million subscribers at the end of Q4 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cellular network</span> Communication network

A cellular network or mobile network is a communication network where the link to and from end nodes is wireless. The network is distributed over land areas called "cells", each served by at least one fixed-location transceiver. These base stations provide the cell with the network coverage which can be used for transmission of voice, data, and other types of content. A cell typically uses a different set of frequencies from neighboring cells, to avoid interference and provide guaranteed service quality within each cell.

TracFone Wireless, Inc. (TFWI) is an American prepaid, no-contract mobile phone provider. TFWI is a subsidiary of Verizon Communications, and offers products and services under several brands. It operates as a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), holding agreements with the three largest United States wireless network operators to provide service: AT&T Mobility, T-Mobile US, and Verizon.

United States Cellular Corporation is an American mobile network operator. It is a subsidiary of Telephone and Data Systems Inc.. The company was formed in 1983 and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. UScellular is the fourth-largest wireless carrier in the United States, with 4,755,000 customers in 426 markets in 23 states as of the third quarter of 2022. It was previously known as United States Cellular and U.S. Cellular.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sprint Corporation</span> American telecommunications company

Sprint Corporation was an American telecommunications company. Before it merged with T-Mobile US on April 1, 2020, it was the fourth-largest mobile network operator in the United States, serving 54.3 million customers as of June 30, 2019. The company also offered wireless voice, messaging, and broadband services through its various subsidiaries under the Boost Mobile and Open Mobile brands and wholesale access to its wireless networks to mobile virtual network operators.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tbaytel</span>

Tbaytel, formerly the Thunder Bay Telephone Company, is a municipally-owned telecommunications company operating in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada, and the surrounding area. Tbaytel's services include data, voice, wireless, internet, digital TV and security.

Dryden Municipal Telephone System (DMTS) is a formerly-municipally owned telephone company in Dryden, Ontario, Canada, offering local residential and business land line service within Dryden, long-distance service to Dryden and surrounding areas.

Unicel was a brand of mobile phone service from Rural Cellular Corporation. Service was provided in northern Minnesota, northern New England, Mississippi, Alabama, eastern Washington and Oregon, and adjacent areas. The company was headquartered in Alexandria, Minnesota. Until 2005, RCC also operated 850 MHz cellular service under the brand name Cellular 2000. On January 25, 2009 Verizon Wireless officially took over all operations of Unicel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Claro Puerto Rico</span> Puerto Rican telecommunication company

Claro Puerto Rico is one of the largest telecommunications services company in Puerto Rico. It is headquartered in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, and has operated for almost a century offering voice, data, long distance, broadband, directory publishing and wireless services for the island residents and businesses. It was founded by the Behn brothers, Sosthenes and Hernan. Originally, Puerto Rico Telephone Company eventually spawned ITT Corporation, which was founded by Sosthenes Behn. The company was a public corporation of the government of Puerto Rico for many years until the majority stakes were acquired by GTE in the mid-1990s. It was a subsidiary of Verizon Communications until it was fully acquired by América Móvil in 2007.

Cellular frequencies in the United States are allocated by the US Federal Communications Commission. As cellular mobile telephone technology has evolved over time, periodically bands of frequencies are reassigned from other radio services. Companies wishing to provide cellular services in a geographic region compete for the right to license radio spectrum in spectrum auctions. Different cellular companies in the same region may use different levels of cellular technology and different parts of the radio spectrum. In addition to radio frequencies used to connect handsets with cellular base stations, other parts of the radio spectrum are used to interconnect base stations and the wired telephone network. Some frequency bands may be vulnerable to interference by existing services in adjacent frequency bands, such as UHF television broadcasting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Femtocell</span> Small, low-power cellular base station

In telecommunications, a femtocell is a small, low-power cellular base station, typically designed for use in a home or small business. A broader term which is more widespread in the industry is small cell, with femtocell as a subset. It connects to the service provider's network via broadband ; current designs typically support four to eight simultaneously active mobile phones in a residential setting depending on version number and femtocell hardware, and eight to sixteen mobile phones in enterprise settings. A femtocell allows service providers to extend service coverage indoors or at the cell edge, especially where access would otherwise be limited or unavailable. Although much attention is focused on WCDMA, the concept is applicable to all standards, including GSM, CDMA2000, TD-SCDMA, WiMAX and LTE solutions.

Airvana was acquired by CommScope in 2015. Prior to that, the company was an independent provider of small cells and femtocells based on fourth generation (4G) Long Term Evolution (LTE) and third-generation (3G) CDMA2000 EV-DO mobile broadband technologies. Airvana products enable mobile operators to deliver 3G and 4G cellular data services indoors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mobile phone signal</span>

A mobile phone signal is the signal strength received by a mobile phone from a cellular network. Depending on various factors, such as proximity to a tower, any obstructions such as buildings or trees, etc. this signal strength will vary. Most mobile devices use a set of bars of increasing height to display the approximate strength of this received signal to the mobile phone user. Traditionally five bars are used.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">West Central Wireless</span>

West Central Wireless is a local mobile phone provider serving Central and West Texas based in San Angelo, Texas, in the United States, with satellite offices in Brady, Texas. Their cellular services consist of 850 MHz HSPA+ and GSM networks and an overlayed 700 MHz LTE network. The HSPA+ network began rollout in early 2012, with a deployment schedule stretching into late summer. CDMA services once existed due to the acquisition of Five Star Wireless offering wholesale roaming service providers, though services have been discontinued in 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LTE (telecommunication)</span> Standard for wireless broadband communication for mobile devices

In telecommunications, long-term evolution (LTE) is a standard for wireless broadband communication for mobile devices and data terminals, based on the GSM/EDGE and UMTS/HSPA standards. It improves on those standards' capacity and speed by using a different radio interface and core network improvements. LTE is the upgrade path for carriers with both GSM/UMTS networks and CDMA2000 networks. Because LTE frequencies and bands differ from country to country, only multi-band phones can use LTE in all countries where it is supported.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Multi-band device</span> Type of mobile phone

In telecommunications, a multi-band device is a communication device that supports multiple radio frequency bands. All devices which have more than one channel use multiple frequencies; a band however is a group of frequencies containing many channels. Multiple bands in mobile devices support roaming between different regions where different standards are used for mobile telephone services. Where the bands are widely separated in frequency, parallel transmit and receive signal path circuits must be provided, which increases the cost, complexity and power demand of multi-band devices.

Associated Carrier Group (ACG) is an industry association of US CDMA cellular network operators.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Small cell</span>


Small cells are low-powered cellular radio access nodes that operate in licensed and unlicensed spectrum that have a range of 10 meters to a few kilometers. In other words, they are base stations with low power consumption and cheap cost that are operated in a licensed spectrum. They can provide high data rates by being deployed densely to achieve high spatial spectrum efficiency.

References

  1. ↑ Cellcom Celebrates 25 Years in Business
  2. ↑ "Nsight". nsight.com. Archived from the original on 2011-05-13.
  3. 1 2 Created HTMLgraphic Designs. "Bandwidth Brothers". insightonbusiness.com.
  4. ↑ "Antigo Daily Journal News Stories". antigodailyjournal.com.
  5. ↑ Cellcom Provides Lifesaving Communications With New Chambers Island Cell Tower Archived September 22, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
  6. ↑ "Membership listing - Small Cell Forum". Small Cell Forum. Archived from the original on 2012-11-27. Retrieved 2013-01-21.
  7. ↑ Mavenir Provides Cellcom Femtocell Technology Archived February 11, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
  8. ↑ "Radio on the Computer". sequence-omega.net.
  9. ↑ "Cellcom on Track for 4G LTE Launch".
  10. ↑ "Verizon to give rural LTE partners access to its AWS spectrum, 'XLTE' network". FierceWireless. 2014-08-07. Retrieved 2017-07-07.
  11. ↑ "Ethics in Business Award Winners 2009 - Ethics in Business Luncheon Green Bay". americanfoundationonline.com. Archived from the original on 2013-02-15.
  12. ↑ Mike McCarthy to be featured in Cellcom Built for You campaign
  13. ↑ "Mike McCarthy shouts last 'Challenge' for Cellcom".
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.