Velocita nabs SkyTel’s paging service for $7.5M

Bell Industries Inc. has finally gotten SkyTel off its plate. Velocita Wireless L.L.C. bought the division for $7.5 million, paying $3 million in closing, $3 million in 30 days and $1.5 million in deferred payments over the next year. SkyTel offers paging, messaging and telemetry services over its ReFLEX network.
With the completion of this sale, Bell is now completely free of SkyTel, which it originally acquired from Verizon Wireless in January 2007. Bell has been handing off SkyTel in bits and pieces over the past year, selling the company’s automated vehicle location business in February 2008 and an undisclosed chunk of 2.5 GHz spectrum to Sprint Nextel Corp. in June 2007 for $13.5 million.
After the acquisition, Velocita, a wireless machine-to-machine data delivery solutions provider, plans to still provide SkyTel’s paging and telemetry services to SkyTel customers through the company’s existing network from its headquarters in Mississippi.