US Cellular has become the fourth-largest wireless carrier in the US, but that's not necessarily to its advantage.
Now that T-Mobile and Sprint have merged, the venerable, Chicago-based carrier—one of the last of the mid-sized regional carriers that long ago dominated the country—is now facing three giants rather than four.
Into this battle steps a new CEO, Laurent Therivel, who starts work on July 1.
US Cellular has been around since 1983.
It serves about 5 million customers in 26 states, down from a peak of about 7 million more than a decade ago.
JD Power rated US Cellular in second place behind Verizon in its 2020 Wireless Network Quality Performance Study for the North Central region.
The carrier didn't have enough responses to chart on our annual Readers' Choice survey, but it ranks pretty low on the American Customer Satisfaction Index, with a precipitous drop between 2019 and 2020.
Therivel comes from running AT&T's operations in Mexico, where the wireless market is dominated by Telcel, which has about 63 percent market share.
AT&T has a mere 15 percent, according to American Tower Corporation, making it a challenger brand—something that US Cellular has also been for years.
Therivel led the company to its first profitable quarter, he said.
Before that, he worked at other positions in AT&T for nearly a decade.
"You listen to customers, give them what it is they're looking for, invest in a strong network and invest in great customer service," Therivel said.
All Networking Is Local
For US Cellular to succeed, it has to think locally.
With 5 million customers, the carrier can't punch at the weight of its three behemoth competitors, who have 100-million-plus subscribers each.
But looking at the national picture overstates the challenge, Therivel said.
"Networking is an inherently local business; yes, you can advertise nationwide this or nationwide that, but at the end of the day, what people care about is, do you connect me where I work, live and play?" Therivel said.
"Our focus which we have on specific regions and on specific communities is an advantage of US Cellular."
So US Cellular needs to find places where the big carriers are weak, meaning rural areas and small cities, he said.
"We have the ability to focus on specific communities, and specific customer types, that maybe the big three don't.
There are underserved geographies.
People who live in Des Moines do not feel that they are in a rural community, but that city, I believe is underserved."
5G in the Heartland
US Cellular launched 5G on March 6 primarily in parts of Iowa and Wisconsin, but so far the company hasn't done much with it.
The network is only usable on Samsung Galaxy S20-series phones, and speeds are very much in the 4G range.
Most notably, the company hasn't launched the 5G home access product it promised back in November.
Therivel confirmed that he still sees home access as the near-term opportunity for 5G.
"The near-term case for 5G is fixed wireless, and you'll continue to see fixed wireless extensions whether it's from US Cellular or from other carriers," Therivel said.
That's just the short term use for 5G, though.
The longer-term opportunity involves US Cellular getting more into the business-access space, something Therivel said he has experience with from when he ran AT&T's small-business group.
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"There are mid-term [5g] use cases that I think are just starting to take shape ...
remote health, smart factory ...
[but] that's an environment where the whole ecosystem has to come together to provide a solution," he said.
"It's a carrier, it's devices, it's the customer, it's even software and solutions.
In the next couple of years you're going to see a lot of that kind of innovation."
I've spoken with companies about rural 5G before, and this tracks with how John Deere, for example, has been pushing 5G solutions hard to further automate agriculture.
To get there, though, US Cellular has to crack enterprise distribution, a cozy world where companies generally like to work with companies they know.
Therivel went back to the idea of US Cellular as a local provider, saying that will help establish those relationships.
"Usually, what people do is start with a business sales force and start to take it down market; the best way to tackle that market is to start with your retail distribution and work up, and US Cellular is in a great position because of our existing store footprint," he said.
