It is not often we hear about the small carriers inside of the US and today news has broke of Verizon filing the paperwork that will lead to buying two of them. Golden State cellular operates out of Sunny California including Amador, Tuolumne, Calaveras, Alpine and Mariposa counties. Even further west from the mainland of the United States is Mobi PCS who operate out of the islands of Hawaii including Oahu, Maui, the Big Island, Kauai, and Molokai.
Many people get scared when they hear of the bigger companies swallowing up and spitting out the smaller ones because it takes away the competition and essentially means they get to dictate the prices and that can result in increases for the consumer. However, in this case, the threat should not be considered too strong because at the end of the day these companies can only charge what the consumer is willing to pay and if they go over that then there will be no sales.
To give you an idea of the size of these carriers, Golden State had 18,000 subscribers and Mobi PCS was founded in 2003 and is based in Honolulu and provides most of Hawaii with cell phone plans and also broadband internet services. If you are from Hawaii and use the internet regularly you would likely know the name to be a household one. It will not completely change either because the Big Red plan to buy 30MHz of PCS spectrum and lease back a 10 Mhz amount back to Mobi PCS. It will result in them no longer being fully independent but still keeping the name and business moving along with the help of Verizon.
Read More: Fierce Wireless