Rural telecommunications provider Shenandoah Telecommunications Co. reported that its wireless subsidiary and Sprint PCS affiliate Shenandoah Personal Communications Co. signed an addendum to its management and services agreement with Sprint. The addendum gives Sprint more flexibility in the negotiation of nationwide reseller agreements in return for providing Shentel a further reduction in charges for back-office services.
Shentel noted that with the changes, it has agreed to participate in all new and renewed reseller agreements signed through 2006, and it signed a letter of agreement to participate in all existing Sprint reseller agreements applicable to its service area. Sprint currently has a number of large reseller customers including Virgin Mobile USA L.L.C. and Qwest Communications International Inc. It recently signed a similar deal with AT&T Corp. scheduled to begin early next year.
In return for the agreement, Shentel said it will receive a reduction in the monthly fee per subscriber paid to Sprint of 45 cents this year, 70 cents next year and 95 cents in 2006, for back-office services, such as billing, customer care, collections and certain network services.
Shentel signed a $20 million contract last week with Lucent Technologies Inc. to purchase next-generation mobile network equipment through 2007 to further enhance its existing CDMA2000 1x-based network in Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania.
