RIP, Sussex Cellular

One of the most backward, most reviled, most laughed-at cell phone companies in the US -- and one mentioned many times here in the Digest over the years -- closed its doors earlier this month. Sussex Cellular (which operated as SciTel Wireless in its last days), the carrier serving Sussex County, NJ that was infamous for its arrogance, roaming agreement "hardball", and poor service and being one of the last analog-only carriers in the continental US, requested that the FCC cancel its license as of August 4.

Since that time their web site has disappeared from the net and the trunks between their MTSO and the rest of the world have been either busied out or disconnected. Based on some digging in the FCC ULS databases, it appears that Sussex is the ONLY cellular (as opposed to PCS or ESMR) licensee to ever have built out a network and simply shut down without selling its licenses, network, and customers to another carrier; given their historical arrogance, that doesn't surprise me one bit.

It doesn't look like anyone has stepped up to take over the vacated license yet, but my guess is that Cingular will do so in order to improve service in Sussex County, where Cingular currently has only

1900 MHz (PCS) coverage and where 850 MHz coverage would be helpful because of the terrain. Other carriers who might be interested in the area include Dobson Communications, who serves areas of New York just to the north of Sussex County, and Commnet Wireless, the roamer-only carrier that serves scattered tertiary and rural markets stretching from California (Lake Isabella/Kernville and Boron) all the way to Tennessee (Mountain City).

Stanley Cline // Telco Boi // sc1 at roamer1 dot org //

"it seems like all you ever buy is Abercrombie and cell phones" --a friend